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LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Bulgarian woman was sentenced Tuesday in Nevada to the maximum six to 15 years in state prison for driving away after her car struck and killed a grandfather pushing a stroller on the shoulder of a busy Las Vegas road.
Galina Stoyanova Kilova, 30, apologized during sentencing to the family of Michael Grubbs, the 63-year-old man killed November 2014.
Grubbs' 18-month-old granddaughter survived with minor injuries in an overturned stroller.
"She's remorseful," defense attorney Martin Hart said of Kilova. "She said she knows the pain they are in, and if there was anything she could do, she would."
Kilova was found guilty at trial in November of felony leaving the scene of an accident. She testified that she didn't know she hit anyone.
Prosecutor Eric Bauman noted Tuesday the sentence was the maximum available at the time of the crash, and that Kilova will face deportation when she's released.
Authorities said she entered the U.S. in 2006 on a visa that allowed her to stay for six months.
A state law that took effect in October raised the penalty for leaving the scene of a crash causing serious injury or death to a mandatory prison term of two years to 20 years.
Hart said a decision hadn't been made whether to appeal.
Jurors were told Kilova was running late heading to work at her restaurant job, and she accelerated as she swerved her Honda Civic around slower traffic and drove onto the dirt shoulder of the road before striking Grubbs.
One witness testified he tried to follow the Civic but lost sight of it.
Kilova surrendered to police eight days later.
Bauman and prosecutor Brian Rutledge said it would have been impossible for Kilova not to have known she'd been involved in a crash.
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