Vincent Polito’s life was changed forever when he was struck by a drunk driver along the side of a Mt. Pleasant road nearly five years ago.
Polito, 23, now requires around-the-clock care as a result physical and cognitive injuries sustained when a vehicle driven by 35-year-old Elizabeth Sirianni hit him and a friend. The pair were walking home from a convenience store along Route 31 after they purchased a late-night snack on July 3, 2020.
“I plead for a maximum sentence for this defendant who through his actions caused irreversible harm. My brother’s life will never be the same and neither will ours,” Polito’s sister, Kayla Thompson, wrote in a letter read aloud in court by Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Scott Mears during Sirianni’s sentencing hearing.
Sirianni was convicted in January of drunk driving and aggravated assault by vehicle. Prosecutors said she was drunk with a blood alcohol level of 0.229%, nearly three times the limit motorists are deemed intoxicated under Pennsylvania law. Witnesses said Sirianni, who spent the night drinking at two local bars, veered off the road and struck her two victims shortly after 2:30 a.m.
Polito, of Mt. Pleasant, suffered leg and rib fractures, as well as head and brain injuries that resulted in strokes and seizures, confining him to a nursing home since the crash. Lawrence Grimes, 40, of Armstrong County, sustained a minor arm injury.
Mears ordered Sirianni to serve one-to-seven years jail, another six months on house arrest and five years on probation in connection with the crash. That sentence also applied to two other drunk driving offenses from 2019 that she also pleaded guilty to on Tuesday.
Sirianni told the judge she has been sober for about five years.
“I just want to apologize for the person I was back then. It was not a good representation of the person I wanted to be. I realize I did wrong and I do want to have a future,” Sirianni said.
Mears said the jail sentence was designed to hold Sirianni accountable for her actions and ordered she immediately begin serving her time behind bars.
“We have a family, an individual, where life was forever altered. If the defendant had shown no remorse, and because there were other crimes, I would have sentenced her to the most severe sentence possible. She has shown she can be rehabilitated but she has to pay the price,” Mears said.