Drunk Driver Who Hit Friend With Car Sentenced
WHEATON, Ill. (STMW) - A 24-year-old Aurora man has been ordered to perform 240 hours of community service work for striking and seriously injuring a friend with his car while driving while intoxicated last spring in west suburban Naperville.
Matthew S. Gozner was also ordered to undergo alcohol and drug abuse counseling as a condition of his sentence. He was also placed on two years of court supervision and fined $2,500.
Gozner pleaded guilty in DuPage County Circuit Court in Wheaton to a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol in connection with the May 13 crash that injured a woman from Michigan. The woman, now 22, underwent treatment at Edward Hospital in Naperville but ultimately recovered from her injuries.
Judge Cary B. Pierce on Nov. 2 accepted Gozner's plea and imposed his sentence, according to court records. Companion charges of driving too fast for conditions/failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident and failure to exercise due care to avoid colliding with a pedestrian were dismissed in exchange for his plea.
Naperville police in May said Gozner and the woman had been drinking together before getting into an argument shortly before 1 a.m. in a parking lot near Highland Avenue and Brainard Street, on the campus of North Central College.
The woman walked out of the lot and onto Highland Avenue, police said. She was struck there by a 2006 Hyundai Elantra being driven by Gozner.
Police did not say what triggered the quarrel. Hospital officials did not specify the nature of the woman's injuries.
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