A Hancock man who was driving a Jeep when his friend fell from the vehicle and died won’t have to spend time behind bars unless he violates his probation, a judge decided Wednesday.
Evan Soukup, 22, was standing on the back bumper of David Lentz’s Jeep in the early morning hours of July 6, 2021 when he fell and hit his head. The pair were on their way to work on a fishing boat and Soukup had been trying to hold a large road sign on the top of Lentz’s vehicle as they drove along Bayside Road in Ellsworth.
Lentz, who is now 25, was initially charged with driving to endanger and reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon. But he was not criminally charged with explicitly causing Soukup’s death. At a trial last summer, a jury found Lentz guilty of the reckless conduct charge, which is a felony, but he was not convicted of driving to endanger.
Justice Harold Stewart sentenced Lentz on Wednesday to a fully suspended 10-month term behind bars and to serve one year of probation. If Lentz violates his probation by getting into trouble with police or driving in the state of Maine, he could have to serve 10 months in a state prison, Stewart said.
Soukup’s parents and Lentz’s mother attended the sentencing Wednesday morning in Ellsworth. Soukup’s mother, Linda Soukup, told Stewart that the sudden death of her son, who had to be taken off life support after being declared brain dead, has had a profound effect on their family.
“If you haven’t lived this, you can’t imagine it,” she told the judge. “The holidays all have gaping holes in them.”
She said that her daughter, who also is Evan’s twin sister, “couldn’t bear” to attend the hearing. Her daughter’s birthdays are not as joyous as they used to be, she said, because they are reminders of the death of her twin brother.
“Sometimes it flows quietly under the surface, and sometimes it floods,” Soukup said, comparing her family’s grief to a river. “But it never goes away.”
Lentz’s mother, Julie Lentz, also addressed the court. She said Evan Soukup was her son’s best friend, and that he has overwhelming feelings of guilt over Soukup’s death.
“It was so immobilizing, he couldn’t do anything,” she said.
Lentz also spoke at his sentencing, and faced the Soukups as he spoke.
“I want you to know, I am sorry,” Lentz said. “This weighs on me every single day. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t wish I was the one who died.”
Stewart, who also ordered Lentz to pay a $500 fine, noted that alcohol and drugs did not factor into Soukup’s death, and that Lentz was not driving erratically or excessively fast when Soukup fell from the Jeep.
Lentz’s reckless behavior stemmed from the simple fact that he drove off, with Soukup giving encouragement while standing on the rear bumper and holding onto the Jeep’s roll bar with one hand and trying to hold the sign on the vehicle’s soft roof with the other, according to the judge.
“Young men sometimes take risks that others don’t,” Stewart said.
