Citing “callous and selfish” behavior, a Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced Frederick Lyle to six years in state prison for leaving a Morristown hit-and-run accident that killed Honduran immigrant Victor Josue Padilla Turcios in 2018.
Lyle, 43, apologized to the victim’s family and quoted theologian Thomas Merton in a plea for leniency during a virtual hearing.
But Judge David Ironson noted Lyle’s voluminous criminal record and anguished comments by Turcios’ father, and imposed the maximum sentence under a plea deal Lyle entered with the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office.
“His actions in fleeing and leaving an unconscious man on the street were clearly callous and they were selfish and actually do have consequences,” the judge said. Lyle must serve three years before seeking parole.
Turcios, a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant, survived a perilous 22-day journey to America as a teenager in 2012. He worked six- and seven days a week as a landscaper in Morristown to send money back to his mother, brother and sister in Honduras, his father told Morristown Green.
Late on June 27, 2018, Turcios was walking on a sidewalk along Martin Luther King Avenue, approaching Abbett Avenue, when he was struck by a vehicle described by a witness as a small black sedan.
He died 10 days later at Morristown Medical Center.
Morris Township police found Lyle’s black Nissan nearby shortly after the accident. Reached on his mobile phone, Lyle told investigators he was in New Brunswick and would return to Morristown for questioning.
Lyle later admitted he was in Morristown at the time, but was scared to come forward because of his record.
His rap sheet lists 10 prior convictions, many for drug offenses, with multiple stints in state prison between 1998 and 2014. Before that, he compiled an extensive record as a juvenile offender, Judge Ironson affirmed.
The prosecutor’s office waited nearly six weeks before requesting public help in locating Lyle. For 20 months he eluded authorities, until Morris County Sheriff’s Officers arrested him at a motel where he was living in Morris County on Feb. 27, 2020.
Lyle pled to a second-degree charge of knowingly leaving the scene of a fatal accident. A second charge — hindering an investigation by providing false information — was dismissed. He could have faced up to 20 years behind bars if convicted at trial, according to the prosecutor’s office, represented Friday by Assistant Prosecutor Tara Wang.
“Six years to me seems very little, because I can’t get my son’s life back with that,” Turcios’ father, Victorino Padilla, told the judge through an interpreter.
His wife has trouble sleeping now, he said, and their home constantly reminds him of his dead boy.
Padilla toiled in Honduran fields to scrape together money for his own border crossing. In 2003 he traversed the Rio Grande on a tire tube, slogged through a lagoon, and endured a suffocating ride in a dump truck where migrants were stacked like firewood.
In Morristown, Padilla washed dishes to pay for his son’s illicit passage to America and, they hoped, a better life. The father said he feared Lyle would shatter others’ dreams, too.
“If he’s out of jail he may continue causing problems. He may kill someone again. And I don’t feel that’s right,” Padilla told the judge.
When it was his turn, Lyle began by apologizing to the Padillas for the “horrific accident” that took Turcios’ life.
“Not one day goes by that I don’t think about this situation, and how it could have been avoided. I hope and pray his family finds peace and closure after today. This was a very traumatic experience for me as well,” said Lyle, a father of five with a second grandchild on the way.
A co-owner of the Hibiscus Island Grille in Morristown submitted a letter praising Lyle as an exemplary employee, saying he worked up to 80 hours a week over the last four years, and paid his child support on time.
Lyle also has volunteered at an annual back-to-school picnic in Morristown, said Morris County Assistant Public Defender Caroline Kelble. During his detention at the Morris County Jail, Lyle addressed substance abuse problems by attending alcohol- and drug support groups, she said. Lyle’s sentence includes credit for 197 days in the county lockup since his February arrest.
While insisting he has made strides, and lamenting the family time he will forfeit, Lyle told Judge Ironson: “I teach my children to this day to accept responsibility for your actions. And that’s what I’m here to do today, Your Honor.”
The judge wished the Padillas well, and advised Lyle he hopes this is his last brush with the law so he may “move on to a successful life.”
Lyle concluded his apology by quoting the late Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and author best known for his 1948 autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain:
What do I mean by loving ourselves properly? I mean first of all, desiring to live, accepting life as a very great gift and a great good, not because of what it gives us, but because of what it enables us to give to others.
Sad all around. If this illegal hadn’t been here he would probably be alive, and the driver wouldn’t be in prison.
Lawlessness on both sides with a bad outcome.