Amy Locane: ‘Melrose Place’ actress going back to jail over 2010 DUI fatality
TV and film actress Amy Locane, 48, perhaps best known for portraying the character Sandy on TV’s “Melrose Place” and co-starring with Johnny Depp in “Cry-Baby,” has been in and out of court and in and out of jail since being found guilty of a 2010 DUI crash that killed a female passenger and nearly killed that woman’s husband who were driving in a car that Locane plowed into as that car was slowing to turn into a driveway in Montgomery, New Jersey.
Yesterday in a Somerville, New Jersey, courtroom, after working through four legal appeals, the actress was sentenced to eight years in state prison for that fatal drunk driving crash. Locane has already spent time behind bars from a previous court sentence. Yesterday the judge said that the original sentence was too lenient.
State Superior Court Judge Angela Borkowski said Locane still refuses to fully acknowledge her culpability in the crash that killed 60-year-old Helene Seeman and severely injured Seeman’s husband. State law requires her to serve more than six years before being eligible for parole.
Locane apologized to the Seeman family in a brief statement. She was placed in handcuffs and taken into custody by court deputies after the proceeding in state court in Somerville. ~ Fox News
Slightly over ten years ago, Locane was driving 53-mph in a 35-mph zone and coming up on a car driven by Fred Seeman who had slowed to a crawl while turning into his driveway. As Seeman’s car turned in front of Locane’s oncoming vehicle, his car got T-boned, with Locane still doing 53-mph. The crash killed Helene Seeman, 60, who was a passenger in the car. Fred Seeman was severely injured in the crash but lived.
Following the crash, Locane’s blood alcohol level proved to be three times the limit for legal impairment after reportedly attending several parties earlier that day and drinking wine, according to The Courier News. Two years after that fatal accident, Locane was found guilty of vehicular homicide and assault by auto – and one year later was sentenced to three years in jail.
TMZ reported that, according to Locane, she hasn’t partaken in any alcohol since that deadly accident in 2010. And according to her Facebook page, she’s been speaking to kids about the dangers of alcohol and speaking out against drunk and distracted driving ever since being released from an earlier prison term that she served at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Union Township.
Following her sentence, Locane told the Seeman family that she was sorry and then she was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. Locane’s attorney told TMZ that she was surprised with the sentence and is very worried about her three daughters after spending the last five years together while she’s been out of jail.
Amy Locane Slideshow
People shared a 2017 statement from the actress:
“I had worked so hard since 2010 on my sobriety, on adjusting to life in prison, on being released from prison, on acclimating to my children’s lives, and to parole that having to go back would seriously interrupt, if not destroy, any progress I had made in becoming human again,” she told NJ Advance Media in an interview.
Also yesterday, Locane posted a family pic to Instagram wishing her mother a happy birthday. Pictured along with Locane and her mother are two of Locane’s daughters, ages 11 and 13. In the post, Locane writes: ‘Ill be with you all… all my❤️’s in spirt’
For more on the story, see the video accompanying this article.
(Cover photo, Amy Locane, 2010 Booking Photo)
~ Posted by Richard Webster, Ace News Today / Connect with Richard on Facebook and Twitter
