Credit: Upper Makefield Police Department/Facebook
A Newtown man will spend the 11 1/2 to 23 months in prison for his sixth drunk driving arrest.
Gosford Sawyerr, 58, was sentenced by Bucks County Judge Diane Gibbons recently. On top of the jail time, Sawyerr sentenced the pharmaceutical researcher to three years of consecutive probation after he serves jail time, according a release from the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.
Sawyerr, who has five drunk driving convictions since 1989, has been in the Bucks County Correctional Facility since Gibbons revoked his bail upon his conviction for his most recent drunk drive arrest in Upper Makefield.
The 58-year-old’s record of driving while intoxicated began in 1989, according to the press release.
From the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office:
Sawyerr had been stopped by an Upper Makefield Township police officer on May 30 along Taylorsville Road. The officer reported that Sawyerr’s vehicle had weaved across the double-yellow center line five times before being pulled over. He refused to submit to field sobriety tests and blood testing when asked to do so.
Assistant District Attorney Jessica Bryant urged Gibbons to sentence Sawyerr to state prison, calling it “nothing short of a miracle that no one was killed or seriously injured that night. This is now the sixth time that he has made this decision” to drink and drive.
Sawyerr expressed contrition in court, telling Gibbons that he was “deeply sorry that I have allowed alcohol to control my life.” He said he had “ruined not only my life, but have affected my wife, my daughters, my family. I have ruined the family name” and inflicted financial hardship by not being able to work.
“The shock of incarceration is beyond what you can imagine,” he continued. “The last four weeks have been life-altering.”
Sawyerr said he would like to be assessed for inpatient alcohol treatment programs, and to be considered for work release during the day so that he could provide for his relatives, some of whom have serious medical issues.
Gibbons said that Sawyerr, until being sent to prison, had refused to acknowledge or deal with his alcoholism problem. Had he been more forcefully punished in New York – where his drunken driving was treated as a summary offense punishable only by fines – he might have been forced into the treatment he needs, she said.
Gibbons said that she wanted Sawyerr sentenced in a way that would prevent him from having access to alcohol, but which also would give him a chance to undergo treatment and counseling for the first time.
