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WEST JORDAN – Seleny Crosby’s father didn’t want to be in court.
“He couldn’t bear to see justice go unserved, and Mr. Daniels receive only probation or community service, which was what was expected,” Crosby family attorney Spencer Banks said.
Instead, Troy Daniels, 44, a former Jordan School District bus driver, was sentenced Wednesday to one year in jail for two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment and failure to signal when a school bus is stopped.
He also received three years of probation and must perform 500 hours of community service upon his release.
Daniels pleaded guilty for actions that lead to the death of Seleny Crosby, 10, on May 2. He was letting students off the bus at 10570 South and 4000 West in South Jordan on April 30 when Crosby stepped out, started crossing and was hit by a second bus.
Charging documents said Daniels activated his hazard lights, but did not engage red light signals or the stop sign in the lane of travel because he needed to hand out flyers to students while they left the bus.
He was apparently five minutes behind schedule and did not want to hold up traffic.
In a surprise move in Third District Court, Banks presented a Facebook post from Daniels, where he wrote his nightmare began when charged with two misdemeanors.
“I can only hope one day that this will settle down so I can put my life back in order,” the post read, in part.
It gave no consideration to the Crosby family’s grief.
Judge Charlene Barlow did not like that. During sentencing she said “bottom line, there has been a death,” and that Daniels did not protect children.
“He understood all along that he could be doing jail time because of the import of this case,” said Brad Schofield, Daniels’ attorney. “A life was lost, obviously. He never had any minimization at all about this.
“He was always very cooperative with everybody.”
Daniels shed tears when he apologized in court.
Banks expressed disappointment though in the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office. He felt felony charges, that would have carried tougher penalties, could have applied in the case.
“But apparently, in their view, regarding all of the facts, it wasn’t appropriate with the way the law is currently,” Banks said.
