PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Vancouver, Wash., man pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide in the hit-and-run death of his former teacher.
Antonio Cellestine was sentenced Friday to five years in prison as part of a plea agreement. The 18-year-old said he was texting when he crashed into Gordon Patterson, a popular teacher at Hudson’s Bay High School.
Cellestine read a statement in which he described Patterson as a friend, recalling before a packed Superior Court room in Vancouver that Patterson helped him with his senior paper.
The 50-year-old teacher was struck and killed while pedaling home from school Sept. 15.
Witnesses told police the vehicle that struck Patterson fled the accident scene. Cellestine was arrested that evening.
