A Wright County man received a jail term of nearly 10 months on Wednesday after being accused of making a phone call as he drove in front of an SUV southwest of St. Cloud and causing a collision that killed the other motorist.
Robert D. Neumiller, 46, of Albertville, was sentenced by Stearns County District Judge Heidi Schultz. She convicted him in November of criminal vehicular homicide and careless driving in connection with the collision on July 12, 2019, at Interstate 94 and Hwy. 23 that killed Arlene Van Beck, 82, of Cold Spring, Minn.
Neumiller will serve his 297-day sentence 99 days at a time spread over three years. The first segment begins July 12, four years to the day since the crash. The next segments will be served starting on May 10, 2024, and May 10, 2025.
The sentence was a downward departure from state guidelines. Over the prosecution's objections, Schultz set aside the recommended four-year term and put Neumiller on probation for five years.
Defense attorney Barry Edwards submitted a motion with the court last week for Neumiller to be spared incarceration and instead be put on probation for three years, pointing to his client's lack of a criminal record and calling the offense "a product of a momentary distraction."
Edwards told the Star Tribune on Wednesday that he intends to appeal the conviction, and he challenged the State Patrol's conclusion that his client was distracted by his phone.
Neumiller had stopped his SUV on an exit ramp from westbound I-94 to Hwy 23. He then entered the intersection and was struck broadside by Van Beck's SUV as she headed northeast on Hwy. 23.
A State Patrol investigation determined that Neumiller's "phone records showed that [he] was placing an outgoing call at the same moment he was entering Hwy. 23," the complaint read.
Ten days after Schultz convicted Neumiller, she filed her "findings of fact" in the case that stopped short of saying cellphone use was proven to be the source of his distraction.
"The defendant could have been distracted by his phone," she wrote, "or he could have been distracted by something he saw out the window [or] could have been daydreaming or distracted by his thoughts. What the defendant was distracted by has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt."
