Motorist Gets 1 1/2 Years for Fatal Hit-Run

An automotive detailer was sentenced to 1 1/2 years in County Jail Wednesday for his felony conviction stemming from a hit-and-run accident that left a bicyclist dead.

Anthony David Fusco, 24, pleaded no contest in October to one felony count of hit-and-run, a misdemeanor charge of vehicular manslaughter and one misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended license.

Carolyn McGregor, a 34-year-old who had recently moved here from Iowa, died after being struck by the truck Fusco was driving on May 23.

She was bicycling with a friend in Pacific Beach when she was run down at Mt. Soledad Road and Beryl Street.

Although Fusco will serve time for the misdemeanors, Superior Court Judge Charles Hayes stayed a four-year prison sentence on the felony charge. This means that Fusco will not go to state prison if he can avoid trouble during a five-year probation.

“He basically split it down the middle,” Deputy Dist. Atty. David Greenberg told McGregor’s friends and family after the hearing. The prosecutor pointed out the Fusco was not given a plea bargain and he made his plea to all charges against him.

Jean McGregor-Johnson, the victim’s Escondido sister who coordinated the large gathering of family and friends, said after the sentencing that they “have suffered enormously from his irresponsibility.”

McGregor-Johnson asked Hayes to hand down the maximum term because of Fusco’s many previous automobile-related convictions. “He obviously doesn’t learn from his mistakes,” she said.

Hayes also ordered Fusco to pay the McGregor family $5,500 to reimburse them for expenses related to Carolyn’s death.