Man sentenced to maximum for DUI crash that killed Angels pitcher

The convicted drunk driver who killed Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart and two of his friends could be in his seventies before he gets out of prison. An Orange County Superior Court judge this morning sentenced the San Gabriel man responsible for the deadly crash.

The judge sentenced 24-year-old Andrew Gallo to the maximum 51 years to life in prison for the crash in April of last year.

Adenhart and three of his friends were driving through a Fullerton intersection when Gallo’s minivan slammed into them.

Prosecutors say Gallo’s blood-alcohol level was three times the legal limit. He’d been convicted of drunk driving before.

Adenhart, 20-year-old Courtney Stewart and 25-year-old Henry Pearson died in the crash.

Twenty-four-year-old Jon Wilhite of Manhattan Beach survived, but barely. Doctors had to reattach his skull to his spine.

At the sentencing in Santa Ana, Gallo profusely apologized. He said he has “so much hatred” for himself.

In a letter read to the court, Adenhart’s parents spoke of the hole their son’s death has left in their lives. They wrote that “no amount of words will ever fill that hole.”