clarinews@clarinet.com (01/17/90)
PONTIAC, Mich. (UPI) -- A judge Tuesday sentenced former Detroit Lions player Reggie Rogers to 16 to 24 months in prison for a 1988 traffic accident that killed three teenagers. Rogers, 25, a former University of Washington player, was convicted Dec. 8 in Oakland County Circuit Court of three counts of negligent homicide, which carries a maximum sentence of two years in prison. During his sentencing before Judge Gene Schnelz, Rogers apologized to the families of the victims of the Oct. 20, 1988, accident at a Pontiac intersection. Rogers was accused of running a red light and crashing broadside into a car driven by Kenneth Willett, 19, of Waterford Township. Willett and his cousins Kelly Ess, 18, and Dale Ess, 17, both of Versailles, Mo., died in the crash. He had been charged with the more serious offense of manslaughter, a felony with a penalty of up to 15 years in prison, but the jury of six men and six women instead convicted him of negligent homicide. One of the final prosecution witnesses in the trial was a Michigan State Police accident reconstruction expert, who used a series of complicated mathematical calculations to disprove Rogers' contention that the light at the intersection turned red as his Jeep passed beneath it. Rogers' laywer, Elbert Hatchett, has said Rogers should have been charged with negligent homicide rather than manslaughter in the first place, and accused the Oakland County Prosecutor's office of making ``a media event out of this'' because of Rogers' celebrity as a professional football player.