MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The wife of former Minnesota Viking Joe Senser was sentenced Monday to nearly 3½ years in prison in a hit-and-run crash that killed a Thai restaurant chef.
An attorney for Amy Senser had sought probation, saying she was "deeply remorseful" about the accident last August that killed Anousone Phanthavong as he stood beside his car on a Minneapolis freeway ramp. But Hennepin County District Judge Daniel Mabley rejected that request, saying he felt Senser had avoided taking responsibility for the crash.
Senser, 45, was convicted in May of leaving the scene of an accident and failure to promptly report an accident, both felonies.
Before she was sentenced, Senser cried audibly as victim impact statements were read. She also cried later as she apologized to members of Phanthavong's family, some of whom wore T-shirts bearing his picture.
"I just hope someday you can forgive me for taking Anousone from you," she said. She said she "just never saw him" and added: "I'm so very sorry."
Mabley sentenced Senser to 41 months in prison and rejected a request from her attorney, Eric Nelson, that she remain free on appeal.
Still, Mabley's sentence was on the low end of the range of 41 to 57 months called for in sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors had asked for all 57 months, saying Senser had shown no remorse and made only excuses for the crash.
Nelson argued that she had, noting in court Monday that she had gone so far as to tattoo Phanthavong's name on her wrist after the verdict as a reminder.
The case was one of Minnesota's most closely watched criminal trials in years, with overtones of a cover-up and a defendant married to a well-known figure in the state. Senser's husband, Joe Senser, was a tight end for the Vikings in the early 1980s and has remained visible as a game commentator and as owner of a string of restaurants in his name.
Phanthavong, 38, was a chef at a Thai restaurant near the site of the accident on Aug. 23. His car had run out of gas and he had pulled to the side of the highway exit ramp. He was filling the car's tank when he was hit. Parts of a Mercedes were found at the scene, and authorities sought the public's help in finding the driver.
Nearly 24 hours later, Nelson called authorities to tell them they could pick up the vehicle involved at the Sensers'. Despite giving up the vehicle, the Sensers didn't talk to police, fueling speculation about who was driving and whether alcohol was involved.
It was more than a week later that Amy Senser admitted she was driving.
During her trial this spring, Senser testified that she felt a jolt when she turned onto the freeway exit ramp in an area undergoing construction, but thought she had hit an orange construction barrel or a pothole. She said she didn't realize a man had been hit until seeing news reports the next day.
But prosecutors said Senser had to have known she hit someone, and highlighted numerous texts that were deleted from Senser's cellphone the night of the crash and the next day.
The Sensers settled a civil lawsuit filed by the Phanthavong family shortly after the criminal trial ended.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
Comments (17)
Add commentNot enough
for killing another person, life doesn't mean much anymore.
A tattoo
of the man you killed?! An idiotic mistake to follow a more extreme idiotic mistake. How can you possibly think that is going to show remorse.
My honest appraisal of this situation?
She knew she hit him.
She lied to everyone involved.
I dont blame her daughter for screaming at her when the cops thought it was her instead of her mother that had hit him.
She was drunk, drunker than a skunk when it happened.
They kept her away from the cops and the courtrooms absolutely long enough to dry her out and present her as a sober sorrowful suburbanite.
If this whole scenario had been handled by a choreographer or script wwriter, it couldn't have come out any smoother or more in her favor than it has. It makes me sick to my stomach that Joes money bought her a lighter sentence.
Money buys all the justice you want, but you better have money or you will end up in jail longer and in worse conditions. She's little more than a drunken person acting remorseful because...SHE GOT CAUGHT. She tried to lie her way out of this every step of the way!
Tattoo
Tattooed as a reminder? All she has to do is wear a long sleeve shirt when she get's out of jail and heads for the first bar she see's.
The reminder is only if you see it!
The fact that Joe wasn't in court with her and
was at home "with the girls" tells me and it should tell you, all we need to know about their marital status at this point...papers will be served on her eventually and it's pretty easy for the servers to find her now. I am betting high and long odds that their marriage is dead and gone.
I don't know Amy, and I bet none of the posters here do
I don't know Amy, and I bet none of the posters here do, too. This was a terrible tragedy for the Thai fellow and his family; no doubt, but also tragic for Senser's family, too.
Doesn't it seem disrespectful and crass to publicly gossip about it?
You feel sorry for her all you want
If she had put her big girl pants on and come forward like a sober adult, I wouldn't be here typing. But she tried to scam and weasel her way out of it over and over and finally, when it was documented that she clearly was at fault, she acts sad about it.
You go ahead and sympathize for her all you want. My feelings are all on the victims side of the room. I offer Ms Senser absolutely zero sympathy and can't say that she deserves any. She did this to herself and the victims...noone else is to blame.
The whole point I am making is that her drinking and COMPLETE lack of acceptance of responsibility ruined how many peoples lives? A dozen at the very least.
If Joe had been with her today it would have shown the entire world that he supported her. His not being there showed the entire world that he absolutely knew that she was going to get what she deserved and that he was okay with that.
It also displayed strong evidence that the marital bonds were far more than just frayed, they were broken, and probably damaged beyond repair.
perp, you make judgements without facts.
You can't know what Joe and the girls were thinking, nor can I. But in their place would you want to hear what people were saying about YOUR family?
How much respect are you showing to them?
I would
I would think they would want to be there to see it happen. They knew what she done and if the daughter hadn't stood up and defended herself, she would be serving the time and Amy would be free. Isn't that how Amy hoped it would be? Joe knew from the moment he looked at his SUV that it wasn't a road cone or barrel that she hit.
BIG difference between a road cone and a human body.
I hope she sits every day and every minute of her sentence.
eyolf
what color is the sky in your world?
Nan
I have two tattoos on my back that I don't see everyday but I still know they are there and they are still a reminder. Either way, she needed more of a punishment than she got! I guess I don't actually believe she is remorseful at all.
motleylarry
I believe what eyore was getting at is this. We might find some kind of satisfaction in piling on, but we look small and petty when we do it.
This is exactly what the media loves, under the guise of "news." Let's find someone in a visible position and see if we can't take them down a notch. After all, these are the "rich." It sells subscriptions.
Aren't we better than that?
Lil cowgirl, totally agree and on another note
I love your profile picture. Now that's funny!
This is an opinion driven forum
and thats what you get, opinions. I wouldn't call it piling on, when I give mine. The fact that she claimed not knowing she hit a human being, is at best, ridiculous. Headlights on modern cars are very good at lighting up the night, even if she was drunk, she knew. There were many text messages deleted after the killing, why?
I call it piling on!
It's easy to see that personal bias and perhaps class envy coming into play in the public's interest and response to this case all along.
I think it's rather chilling actually, at least for the well known/well off among us.
First off the critical fact--did she know she hit someone--was a he said/she said thing all along. Absolutely no way to know the truth about that.
I do think it can be safely said she should have known she hit something given the car damage.
But what do you do about that? If you were well off and your wife or daughter hit something while driving a very expensive vehicle on a poorly lit twin cities off ramp, what would you have her do?
I sure as heck would not tell her to park right there and get out to go see what it was she hit!
Nor would I even want her parking at the spot and waiting for someone else to come along--unless she had a loaded gun with her and was comfortable and capable of using it for protection.
The other public act of piling on has to do with the timing of coming forward. From what we understand they obtained a lawyer fairly quickly and from what I have heard from a lawyer--that was the best thing they could have done, and any smart lawyer would NOT bring his client forward right away. Not until they had conducted their own research into what happened. She she gets punished for following sound legal advice and doing what her lawyer told her to do.
Then there's the daughter issue. That's a stepdaughter, if I recall correctly. We all know how relationships between new wives and existing kids go--can we trust that relationship was even a loving one--do we know the kid hasn't had a grudge against Amy right from the time her dad cut it off with her own mother?
I think it's very likely that Senser suffered more due to her fame and economic status than anyone of more normal means would have here.
forgot another stepdaughter fact...
That might be in play here.
She's often labelled as an "aspiring pop star". Is he using her stepmother's tragedy as a springblock to fame for herself here?
Are you
telling me if you hit a person putting gas into his car, you wouldn't know it? Do you always drive with your eyes closed? As far as envy, hardly, nothing to be envious of.