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COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Danish appeals court increased the prison sentence Tuesday of a man convicted of aggravated manslaughter for crashing his jet ski into a boat and killing two American students.
The Eastern High Court in Copenhagen said 25-year-old Frederik Oliver Schmidt should serve 30 months because of his recklessness that led to the fatal May 6, 2016 crash. Schmidt, who is from Denmark, was sentenced in January to two years in prison.
He fled after the crash and was arrested at a suburban Copenhagen harbor.
Schmidt admitted steering the jet ski that slammed into a rental boat containing a group of students, killing Leah Bell, 18, of Madisonville, Louisiana, and Linsey Malia, 21, of Easton, Massachusetts. They were on a trip with five other students from the Copenhagen-based Study Abroad in Scandinavia foundation.
"I'll take my punishment for what I've done. I still have not done it on purpose," Schmidt said Tuesday, according to Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet.
Schmidt told the court he lost control of the jet ski. The appeals court said it increased the sentence because of the recklessness of his act and also ruled that his jet ski should be impounded.
A license to use a jet ski became mandatory in Demark following the crash.
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