College Park Man Receives Four-Year Sentence in Deadly Hit-and-Run Case

A College Park man is set to serve four years behind bars after pleading guilty on Friday in an alcohol-fueled hit-and-run case, The Gazette reports.

Michael Charles Dalton Jr., 23, drove his Buick LeSabre into Gaithersburg resident Roberto Nassar’s scooter at a light on Rockville Pike on Sept. 22, according to police documents obtained by the Gazette.  The impact flung Nassar, 30, off his scooter.  He died hours later in a local hospital.

Dalton, of the 10200 block of Baltimore Avenue, was on his way home from The Fillmore in Silver Spring, where credit card records show he bought seven vodka drinks, according to the report.

Police later recorded his blood alcohol concentration at 0.21, more than twice the legal limit.  In his guilty plea, Dalton included that he only remembers drinking four of his drinks that night, according to the article.

Police later picked up Dalton about a mile away from the crash after he attempted to flee the scene.  until he was arrested near the intersection of Rockville Pike and Edmonston Drive, according to a Montgomery County Police Department press release.

Judge Sharon V. Burrell of the Montgomery County Circuit Court sentenced Dalton to a total of 13 years after he pleaded guilty to one count of homicide by motor vehicle while under the influence, and one count of failing to stop at the scene of an accident involving death, writes the Gazette. 

Dalton will serve just under his four month prison sentence. Judge Burrell has allotted nine years of Dalton’s total sentence for probation, and allowed the 200 days he has spent in house arrest to count toward the sentence.