Driver avoidsjail sentence fordeadly accident

By STACY LANGLEY
Tribune Staff Writer

BAD AXE â€" Family members of an Oxford woman who was killed in a July 2011 car accident in Fairhaven Township were visibly upset Monday following the sentencing of a local man.

“You can run a stop sign and kill someone. All it will cost you is $2,000,” Everett Dulek shouted as he left Huron County District Court.

Before leaving the courtroom, Dulek and his children, grandchildren and other family members sat quietly inside, listening as Charles R. Krohn of Elkton was being sentenced on a misdemeanor charge, moving violation causing death.

In a plea agreement with the Huron County Prosecutor’s Office, Krohn pleaded no contest to the charge and agreed to pay full restitution in the case.

District Court Judge David B. Herrington when sentencing Krohn reminded those attending the proceeding that Krohn’s sentencing â€" which did not include jail time â€" reflects the fact that Krohn does not have a criminal or any driving offenses on his record.

Krohn was ordered to complete 100 hours of community service, and pay $2,380 in court-related costs and fines.

Herrington left restitution in the case open to give the family of both Janice Dulek, and her passenger who survived the crash, more time to submit any reimbursement for expenses beyond what insurance picked up.

And as for Krohn’s drivers license, Herrington said the Secretary of State will determine the status.

Prior to hearing Krohn’s sentence, Bad Axe attorney Gerald M. Prill who represents Krohn said “there is not one word, not one phrase (that anyone) could say that will change the tragic event on July 31, 2011. If we could (change things) we would.”

Prill also told the Dulek family that he and Krohn reviewed the letters and photos they submitted to the court about Janice Dulek.

In the letters to the court, Everett Dulek said his wife, who was 68 years old at the time of the crash, died before they were able to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in November 2011.

“We have four children, eight grandchildren. Janice was an angel and everyone who knew her loved her,” Everett Dulek said in his letter. “I think when Charles R. Krohn left home on that Sunday morning July 31 and set his cruise control at 55 mph to travel such a short distance, in the back of his mind he had no intention of stopping at the stop sign.”

Prill said Krohn was talking with his wife and had looked over at her as they traveled through the stop sign on a route he rarely takes when the crash took place.

“Mr. Krohn has never been afraid of how this would affect him. From day one until today he’s never said ‘what’s going to happen to me?’ Just that this was another step that he had to take for what has happened,” said Prill, adding that Krohn all along was more worried about the victims and their families instead of himself or his wife.

Police reports from the accident revealed Krohn, who was 36 at the time, was westbound on Geiger Road in his pickup truck when he failed to stop at the stop sign at Bay Port Road just before 10:30 a.m. on July 31, 2011.

The Krohn vehicle reportedly struck a southbound vehicle traveling on Bay Port Road driven by Janice Dulek.

Dulek was killed in the crash. Krohn and his wife, Kristy, who was a passenger along with a passenger in the Dulek vehicle, Carol A. Depifanio, 60, of Lapeer were all transported to Scheurer Hospital in Pigeon for treatment. Krohn and Depifanio were later transported by helicopter to Covenant Hospital in Saginaw.

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