Champs Pizza Owner Handed 20-Year Sentence In Fatal Hit & Run
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- The owner of a popular Glen Burnie pizzeria was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison in a fatal hit-and-run crash last year, the Anne Arundel State's Attorney's Office said.
The man was sentenced as a subsequent offender, having two prior driving while impaired cases in 2012 and 2018.
Officials said 38-year-old Guarav Rawal was intoxicated and on Snapchat while driving at 110 mph in a Mercedes when he rear-ended a Jeep on southbound MD Route 10 in the area of the Dover Road overpass.
The Jeep lost control, overturned and struck the right shoulder guardrail, stopping in the southbound shoulder. Driver Anthony Jean-Louis, 37, of Pasadena, died at the scene.
Officials said Rawal fled the scene of the crash on foot and offered to pay multiple people cash to take him home. Police arrested him when he was found intoxicated, with blood on his clothes and glass on his face. DNA testing confirmed Rawal was the driver of the Mercedes.
Rawal was supposed to have an interlock device on his vehicle due to his previous convictions, but one was not found in the Mercedes.
Rawal is the owner of Champs Pizza, a restaurant that has been featured Travel Channel's show Ginormous Food for its giant pizza topped with pounds of crab meat. The restaurant is also listed in the Food Network's Top Places to Eat for its unique topping options.
Jean-Louis, who was killed in the crash, was a retired Cryptologic Network Warfare Specialist in the Army Reserve and Army from May 2001 to November 2016, the State's Attorney's Office found.
"The defendant's reckless disregard for others is evident by his actions throughout this crime from the level of intoxication, to the excessive speeding, to the use of his cell phone and then leaving the scene of a fatal crash. The most appropriate sentence for this defendant is his removal from our community to protect others," said State's Attorney Anne Colt Leitess. "Mr. Jean-Louis was senselessly killed by an out-of-control driver and his family has suffered from this unimaginable event."