Local News in Brief : Wrong-Way, Drunk Driver Gets 1-Year Sentence in Crash

A Thousand Oaks electrician who was drunk and driving the wrong way on the Ventura Freeway when he injured a Ventura couple in a head-on collision was sentenced Tuesday to a year in County Jail.

Van Nuys Superior Court Judge James A. Albracht also ordered Christopher Landon, 25, to serve five years’ probation and pay the victims, Thomas and Janice Kelly, $7,500 in restitution for the accident, which occurred when Landon drove east in the westbound lanes of the freeway near Agoura.

Janice Kelly suffered a broken arm and bruises in the accident, a probation report said. Thomas Kelly’s face was badly cut, one of his hips was broken and his left leg was fractured in three places. He appeared in court on crutches.

Landon, who told a probation officer that he did not remember the incidents leading up to the April 28 crash, pleaded no contest in October to one count of causing great bodily injury by driving under the influence of alcohol.

Albracht could have sentenced Landon to three years in state prison, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Cohen said, but the judge noted that Landon had no record, was employed and was buying a home at the time of the accident.

“It does not please me to see a man of your circumstances go to jail,” Albracht said. “But what should I do to impress people in society that they must not drive along under the influence of alcohol and smash into people?”