Thursday afternoon saw the acquittal of Paul Bennett, of homicide charges, inside a Hall County, GA courtroom. However he was found guilty of boating under the influence, reckless operation of a vessel, and failure to render aid after a crash that killed two young brothers in June of 2012.
Bennett was stripped of boating privileges in the state of Georgia, ordered to undergo drug & alcohol evaluations, as well as two and a half years of prison, to be followed by one and a half years of probation, and four hundred hours of community service.
The incident in June of 2012 occurred on Lake Lanier around 10:30pm, when the boat he was driving with his girlfriend, collided with a pontoon boat that had about a dozen people on it including the Prince family of five. The collision tossed the two youngest Prince boys, Jake, 9, and Griffin, 13, into the lake. Their oldest brother, Ryan, jumped into the dark waters to rescue his brothers but was only able to pull Jake from the water. Unfortunately, Jake was unable to be revived. It took search crews nearly a week and a half before Griffin could be found, over a hundred feet at the bottom of the lake.
The day after the crash the boating under the influence charge was levied against Bennett. It took several weeks before the additional charges of homicide by vessel, failure to render aid, and reckless operation of a vessel were added.
Hall County District Attorney, Lee Darragh, told jurors that the alcohol test Bennett was given resulted in a .14, well above the .08 legal limit. However, Barry Zimmerman, defense attorney for Bennett, argued that the breath test was questionable since it was taken hours after the incident, and after the crash Bennett had gone home and made a mixed drink. Zimmerman then told the court that his client had passed all sobriety tests with the exception of some that were due to physical limitations. Darragh rebutted that Bennett and his girlfriend left the scene because he was intoxicated and knew the crash had resulted in fatalities.
The eleven jurors– the twelfth being dismissed for using the internet to look for additional details on the case– decided the fate of Paul Bennett after he agreed to allow the trial to continue with only the eleven jurors.
Edited by SS
