No jail sentence in vehicular death

Abraha Rutty, a 23-year-old Ethiopian Orthodox Church deacon, was facing three years in a New Jersey state prison after entering into a plea deal in May for killing a moped rider while allegedly asleep behind the wheel.

The soft-spoken Newark, N.J., man bowed and clasped his hands as his parents, his minister and others invoked the name of God and pleas for mercy while they testified to Rutty's depth of character and compassion in Gloucester County Superior Court yesterday.

Rutty struck down Edward R. Hoffman, 51, of Clayton, last July with his Honda. Out of religious observance, Rutty had been fasting for more than a day, and was exhausted after staying up most of the night before to get his passport in Philadelphia for a missionary trip to Ethiopia.

"I'm asking, truly asking as a mother, to look at us, all of our children, and say it could happen to any of us," his tearful mother, Janet Rutty, told the judge.

Judge Christine Allen-Jackson listened. Then, calling it the toughest case ever to be on her docket, she sentenced Rutty to five years' probation, suspended his driver's license for five years, and ordered him to pay more than $25,000 in fines and restitution.

The decision provoked gasps, tears and angry murmurs from Hoffman's family and friends.

Rutty was originally charged with second-degree vehicular homicide under the state's Maggie's Law, which targets drowsy driving, but prosecutors downgraded the charge to third-degree aggravated assault as part of the plea deal.

Allen-Jackson said that imprisonment would be an injustice for several reasons: Rutty, a first-time offender, was remorseful; he had not been under the influence of drugs or alcohol; he was fasting for religious reasons; and he had no ill intent.

Rutty's attorney, Kareem Crawford, and Assistant Prosecutor Laurie Cimino declined to comment.

"Quite obviously, this is a reason to have Maggie's Law," said Karen Hoffman, Edward Hoffman's widow, outside the courtroom. "What's the point if it's not going to be enforced?"

Asked whether she would appeal the decision, she said, "I'm going to take this as far as I can."

She had given tearful testimony on the man known as "Ray" before the judge about a half-hour before.

"Mr. Rutty's family is giving up day-to-day contact for a few years, but they can visit," she said during the sentencing. "He will come home and their lives will go back to normal. Ours never will."

She described her husband as a man who dropped everything to help people, and always got down on the floor to play with his grandchildren and cheer them on at sports games.

Amanda Hoffman, Edward Hoffman's daughter, burst into tears as she uttered her first sentence in court: "Nobody here knows what my family has gone through. We've lost somebody. They haven't."

The prosecution and defense dispute whether Rutty, apparently lost on the way home from Philadelphia, was asleep or had fallen unconscious when his car propelled Hoffman's moped from behind into a telephone pole in Clayton.

Rutty was studying mechanical engineering, frequently helped out in his family's businesses, and volunteered at a community center. People who know him stressed that his commitment to learning Ge'ez, a complex language used in the Ethiopian church, showed his diligent nature.

"I pray that [the family] will forgive me for what has happened," said Rutty.

But Karen Hoffman wondered afterward, "What made [Edward Hoffman] any less important?"

Rutty's black-robed minister, the Rev. Norman Sheriff, rounded the corner alone and saw her. He ventured sympathetic words.

"I have nothing to say to you," Karen Hoffman said.

She quickly walked away.