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| Cheryl A. Frey, A former Erie police officer, was sentenced to three to six years of prison for driving drunk and causing a head-on collision that killed 57-year-old Wade A. Schulze. She was off duty and driving home from a bar in McKean Township |
Judge declines to sentence Cheryl Frey in aggravated range, tells her that being a police officer ‘doesn’t give you a free pass.’
A former Erie police officer on Wednesday went from making a career of upholding the law to having to spend as many as the next six years in state prison.
The officer, Cheryl A. Frey, was sentenced to three to six years of incarceration plus three years of probation for driving drunk and causing a fatal crash when she was off duty and driving home from a bar in McKean Township in February 2017.
Frey was facing a mandatory minimum of three years in state prison after a jury on June 18 found her guilty of all charges, including homicide by vehicle while DUI.
Erie County Judge William R. Cunningham, who presided at Frey’s five-day trial, declined to give Frey a sentence in the aggravated range of the state sentencing guidelines, as the Erie County District Attorney’s Office requested. Cunningham sentenced Frey in the high end of the standard range of the guidelines and told her that her former job as a police officer spared her nothing.
Being a police officer “doesn’t give you a free pass,” Cunningham said. “It doesn’t allow you to violate the law.”
Cunningham said he had to consider a number of issues for sentencing purposes, including Frey’s lack of a prior record and the severity of the accident, in which Frey crossed the centerline of Route 99 and struck another motorist head-on, killing him.
“There are a host of factors to balance,” Cunningham said.
Frey, who rejected a plea deal in the case despite what the prosecutor called “a mountain of evidence” against her at trial, told Cunningham that she did not go to trial to cause more sorrow for the family of the victim, 57-year-old Wade A. Schulze.
“I cannot imagine the pain,” Frey told Cunningham of Schulze’s death. “I apologize.”
Frey resigned from the Erie police force shortly after her conviction, her lawyer, Andrew Sissinini, said in court. Frey, who had been an Erie police officer since 2008, had been on unpaid suspension since she waived her preliminary hearing in the case a year ago. The city had been waiting on the outcome of her trial to decide on whether to fire her.
Sissinini told Cunningham that Frey was a dedicated police officer whose passion is rescuing animals. He described Frey as a “selfless person” who was “not the person portrayed by the commonwealth in this case.”
“There was no malice in her heart that night,” Sissinini said, referring to the accident.
Assistant District Attorney Jeremy Lightner asked for a sentence in the aggravated range. He cited Frey’s level of drunkenness — nearly three times the legal limit — and said she did nothing to try to brake before driving into Schulze’s car and was “flooring it” just before impact.
“The recklessness rises to another level,” Lightner said. “There are so many factors that point to an aggravated-range sentence.”
Schulze’s daughter, Justine Sullivan, told Cunningham that Frey took from her a father who enjoyed animals and telling stories. She said she cannot walk by a display of birthday cards or father’s day cards without getting upset at the loss of her dad.
“His life was special,” Sullivan said.
She said Frey, as a police officer, should have known not to drive drunk.
“I believe she should be held to a higher standard,” Sullivan said.
Frey at trial was also convicted of aggravated assault by vehicle while DUI, homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter and two counts of DUI. Most of those charges merged at sentencing with the major count of homicide by vehicle while DUI.
The jury found that Frey was drunk and driving northbound on Route 99 when her black Subaru Crosstrek crossed into the opposing lane of traffic and struck Schulze’s southbound Honda Civic. The accident happened just north of the intersection with Old Route 99 on the early morning of Feb. 18, 2017.
Frey’s blood-alcohol content was 0.232 percent, according to information presented at the trial. The legal limit is 0.08 percent
The prosecution at trial presented surveillance video footage from inside two taverns — the St. Francis Ushers Club, on Route 99, and the Valley Inn, on Old Route 99 — that showed Frey consumed at least 13 drinks in the five hours before the crash.
The defense agreed that Frey was drunk during the collision. Sissinini told jurors that the directions of the vehicles were reversed: that Frey was driving south and Schulze, the driver of the Honda, was heading north.
Frey rejected a plea deal in the case.
She pleaded guilty a year ago to a second-degree felony count of homicide by vehicle while DUI and a misdemeanor count of DUI. Six other charges were dropped as part of her plea agreement.
Those charges were reinstated after Frey withdrew her plea at what had been scheduled to be her sentencing hearing in March. Sisinni, Frey’s lawyer, said Frey did not believe she was the “proximate cause” of the crash and that she believed Schulze, who had a BAC of 0.11 percent, played a significant role.
At the sentencing, Sullivan, Schulze’s daughter, said Frey alone was to blame, and now must go to prison.
“She was supposed to be a leading example of upholding the law,” Sullivan said.