L.I. Driver Gets 2 To 6 Years In Fatal Hit-And-Run

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A Long Island man has been sentenced to two to six years in prison in a hit-and-run that killed a father of two last December.

Joseph Plummer, 49, struck and killed Scott Wayte who was walking across the street to attend his 50th birthday party at a Riverhead restaurant.

Plummer fled the scene and was caught five days later.

District Attorney Thomas Spota said Plummer was drinking vodka out of a water bottle before the hit-and-run, but received a lighter sentence because prosecutors couldn't prove that he was drunk or high on drugs at the time of the incident.

"He deserves to have at least been charged with manslaughter," Spota said, adding that if there were tougher laws for those who leave the scene of a crime, Plummer could have received up to 15 years in prison.

Wayte's family was in the courtroom Wednesday for Plummer's sentencing.

"You left my dad on the road to be hit by another car and for my family and I to walk out of the restaurant on his birthday dinner to see him lying there dead under a car with blood all over," the victim's daughter, Alexandria, told the court, in a statement read by her sister Brooke Wayte.

"The fact that you knew what you did and chose to leave the scene speaks volumes about the type of person you are; how can you live with yourself?" the victim's sister, Wendy Worytko, said. "You are despicable and deserve the very worst life has to offer. You can be thankful that I am not the one deciding on your prison sentence, you would never again see the light of day if it were up to me."

Plummer apologized to the family.

"I'm very sorry for the whole family that this ever happened and it wasn't on purpose, it was an accident," Plummer said.

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