Breaking News for Culpeper and Warrenton Accident Victims

Culpeper man sentenced after alcohol-related crash injures police officer

Posted on Mar 31, 2009

A Culpeper man who pleaded guilty in December of maiming a police officer as a result of driving while intoxicated and felony hit and run was sentenced this week. The accident, which happened on March 15, 2008, seriously injured an off-duty police officer.

The driver, Santos Obidio Arita Najera, 31, injured the officer when he crossed solid double yellow lines and crashed into him. Arita Najera was driving a 2004 Toyota Tacoma truck when he hit the officer, Prince William Police Lt. Phillip E. Harrover Jr., who was riding a 2006 Kawasaki motorcycle. The collision caused Harrover to be thrown from his motorcycle into a 2003 Jeep Wrangler.

Arita Najera tried to flee the scene of the accident but was stopped by other drivers on the road. The man, a Honduran national, was in the U.S. illegally. A judge sentenced him to 10 years in prison with five and half years suspended. The sentence was more than Virginia’s voluntary sentencing guidelines called for.