An Akron man was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison for aggravated vehicular homicide in connection with a high-speed crash in May on Copley Road that took the life of a 19-year-old woman.
Andre Joseph Graves, 37, had been driving without a valid license since 1999, police said, when he caused a four-vehicle crash at a speed between 60 and 65 miles per hour in a 35 mph zone.
The vehicles that Graves struck were all stopped at a traffic light at the intersection of Copley and Crestview Avenue at about 8:30 a.m. on May 6.
India O. Douglas, of Bye Street in Akron, was trapped in her Chevy Cobalt and was removed from the vehicle by Akron firefighters.
Douglas suffered a serious head injury and died five days later.
Graves was driving a 2012 Honda CRV westbound on Copley Road when he rear-ended the victim’s vehicle, pushing it into a Hyundai Elantra. The Elantra then was pushed into a pickup truck, police said.
At the time of the crash, Graves had a case pending in Akron Municipal Court for being pulled over by police on March 18, resulting in a citation for having an open container.
As part of the sentence, Graves also was given a lifetime suspension of his driver’s license by Summit County Common Pleas Judge Mary Margaret Rowlands.
Court records show that Graves had more than 30 traffic-related citations in municipal court between 1998 and 2015. Most of the cases involved driving without a license or driving while his license was suspended.