A West Virginia judge has sentenced a habitual drunken driver to the maximum of 41 to 56 years in prison for charges stemming from a July 8 accident that killed five people and injured seven others.

Monongalia County Circuit Judge Russell Clawges Jr. sentenced Brian J. Stone to 14 years in the North Central Regional Jail on 14 misdemeanor counts, to be followed by 27 to 56 years in a state correctional institution on 12 felonies. Judge Clawges also fined Mr. Stone the maximum of $64,000.

Brian J. Stone

"He got everything coming to him," said Monongalia County Prosecuting Attorney Marcia Ashton, who tried the case.

A jury in March deliberated but two hours before convicting Mr. Stone, of Cheat Lake, W.Va., on charges including driving under the influence causing death, seven counts of DUI with injury, five counts of leaving the scene of an accident involving death, seven counts of leaving the scene of an accident involving injury, and one DUI count.

Police said Mr. Stone, formerly of North Versailles, was driving his 2007 Ford pickup truck when it rear-ended a Ford Taurus on the eastbound side of Interstate 68 near Morgantown. That caused the Taurus to cross the median and enter the westbound lanes, where it struck a Chevrolet TrailBlazer.

His blood alcohol level, according to trial testimony, was 0.23, or nearly three times the legal limit for a driver in West Virginia.

Killed in the TrailBlazer were Donnell Perry and his daughters, Justine, 18, and Jentil, 15, of Clarksburg, W.Va.; in the Taurus, those killed were Courtney B. Evans, 30, and his son Sawyer, 12, of Baltimore. The Evans family had recently moved from Sistersville, W.Va.

Seven others were injured in the crash, five in the TrailBlazer and two in the Taurus.

Before the sentencing, some of those injured told the judge how Mr. Stone has forever changed their lives by taking their loved ones from them. The courtroom was in tears.

"The trial was emotional from beginning to end and the sentencing hearing was another chapter," Ms. Ashton said. "It is difficult for prosecutors doing a particular job to nonetheless remain unaffected by that kind of high emotion."

Mr. Stone, who has had nine drunken driving arrests since 1998 and seven convictions, isn't done with the criminal justice system.

He still faces prosecution on a drunken driving arrest that preceded the fatal crash by three months.

After that, he likely will be extradited to Pennsylvania by the state attorney general's office for adjudication of five felonies and four misdemeanors alleging he tampered with public driving records and committed insurance fraud in regard to vehicle coverage.