BARDSTOWN, Ky. — A school bus crash from earlier this year in Nelson County is causing parents of victims to question how much jail time is justice served.
"In these situations, all the victims should be communicated with before any kind of plea agreements are given, so that our opinion is heard on what should happen," said Thomas Sauer, the father of a child in the bus accident.
Sauer and other Nelson County parents are vetting a plea deal accepted by 29-year-old Ricardo Gray that police said would give him one year at Nelson county jail and five years on probation.
Commonwealth's attorney Terry Geoghegan said it's in addition to a 10 year sentence in Jefferson County that is being served for three unrelated cases.
"I don't think they should be given a slap on the wrist and just released after a year," Sauer said.
The children were riding home from Bloomfield Middle School last spring when Gray crashed into the school bus, driving a stolen truck during a police chase.
The Nelson County Sheriff's Office told WHAS11 in March that the truck was stolen from a Walmart gas station. Investigators said no children were hurt in the crash, but Gray was taken to the hospital.
"As a father I was pretty upset that somebody would steal a truck and wreck into a school bus full of kids like that," Sauer said.
Major Brandon Bryan told WHAS11 that the Nelson County Sheriff's Office doesn't think the plea deal is fair. The office informed victim's families of the plea deal in a letter dated Sept. 9.
"We received a letter from the Sheriff's department letting us know that the defendant had been given a lightened sentence from what we all expected he would get," Sauer said.
Geoghegan later confirmed on Facebook that Gray, in all, will spend 11 years in jail under the plea deal.
"He's going to have 11 years versus the initial one year that we were told in the letter," Sauer said.
Geoghegan called the sentencing mix-up a "miscommunication."
Parents are still deciding if the plea deal does enough and will be in the courtroom for the October sentencing.
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