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The Sentinal
Last updated: Wednesday, March 28, 2007 7:44 AM EDT
BELLEFONTE, Pa. – A man police said was legally blind when his vehicle ran down a Penn State university professor riding a bicycle pleaded guilty to homicide by motor vehicle.
Thomas B. Fry, 52, is expected to be sentenced under an agreement with the prosecutor to nine months of home confinement and five years of probation, though family members of the professor said they would object. Centre County President Judge Charles C. Brown Jr. scheduled sentencing for May 22.
Fry’s vehicle struck professor Bohdan Kulakowski in March 2006. He had been filing medical disability forms as early as the mid-1980s stating that he was legally blind.
Kulakowski’s daughter, Dorota Smith, said family members will urge Brown to reject the plea and hold a trial. “He killed a man,” Smith said.
Fry’s attorney, Ron McGlaughlin, said Fry was taking multiple antidepressant drugs, and must live with the fact that another human being is dead because of him. “You live with that daily. That’s going to be his sentence,” McGlaughlin said.