The motorist who hit and killed a 12-year-old boy while driving with a suspended license on Long Island in 2014 will serve prison time for his role in the fatality.
Austin Soldano was sentenced to 6 months behind bars for hitting and killing Zachary Ranftle with his car in Valley Stream on Dec. 11, 2014. Prosecutors say he will likely serve a year of the sentence. In an unrelated case, Soldano was also sentenced Wednesday o a year behind bars for driving while intoxicated.
Soldano was arrested after he hit Ranftle, a seventh grade student at Memorial Junior High School, at South Franklin Avenue and West Merrick Road. Ranftle was transported to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead.
There was no criminality in the fatality itself, but Soldano was cuffed for driving with a suspended license.
At a sentencing hearing Wednesday, the 30-year-old apologized, saying "no words are adequate to express how remorseful I am."
Ranftle's mother said that the sentence wasn't stringent enough and vowed to fight for stricter penalties for unlicensed drivers involved in traffic fatalities.
"It's not enough," said mother Katie Flood. "Six months is not enough."
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Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas said that she agrees with Flood and called on legislators in Albany to pass a law stiffening penalties.
“Austin Soldano flagrantly and repeatedly violated the traffic laws, continued driving while his license was suspended and it led directly to Zachary Ranftle’s death. This should not be a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of six months in jail; there must be felony penalties," she said.
