At Sentencing, Father Blames Addiction For Events That Led To Son’s Death

At his sentencing Monday, Christopher D. Kuhn said opioid addiction was to blame for his unraveling.

“The addiction I was suffering took control of me. On a day-to-day basis, it was just consuming me, all day, all the time. I couldn’t beat it,” he said in court.

The unraveling ended with Kuhn, 27, of Hamilton, New Jersey, stealing a piece of $228 sound equipment from the Walmart in Tullytown last October.

As store security called police, he rushed to his Jeep in the parking lot and threw his 2-year-old son Qadan Trievel in the back seat without buckling him in. Kuhn fled the Walmart parking lot and sped toward Route 13 before blowing a red light, striking another vehicle, and rolling over the Jeep.

In a moment, Qadan’s little body laid motionless on Route 13.

Kuhn, according to witness and police accounts, stood over his son’s body and then took off running as Tullytown cops rushed to the scene.

Qadan didn’t have a chance. The crash forced his body out of the Jeep and his skull was fractured when he hit the pavement.

“I don’t know what to say, because nothing’s going to bring him back. I’m just truly sorry,” Kuhn said in court. “I loved my son. I don’t want anybody to think that I didn’t.”

Qadan’s mother, Mackenzy Trievel, pushed for a long prison term for Kuhn.

“Qadan was my world and there are no words to convey the amount of love I have for my son or the amount of suffering I am experiencing as a result of him being killed, literally ripped away from me in an instant at the hands of a careless person,” she wrote in a statement read in court.

“I believe he is likely to reoffend. He needs to be held accountable for his blatant disregard for others and stopped from hurting anyone else the way he has crushed me,” she wrote.

Senior Chief Deputy Public Defender Bradley H. Bastedo said his client was a “flawed, broken individual” who never intended to hurt his son.

Bastedo submitted 17 character reference letters to the court, as well as calling six friends and family members as witnesses.

Deputy District Attorney Bob James argued for a lengthy sentence for Kuhn, referencing his criminal history. He told the court of Kuhn’s violent threats against Trievel, including one where he choked her and put a screwdriver to her neck as she held their 2-week-old son.

James made the case that Kuhn had failed to follow orders from the court system, including court-ordered drug treatment and counseling.

“This is a man who does what he wants when he wants,” James said. “Instead of taking his sobriety seriously, he thumbs his nose at the court system.”

Kuhn also had a record of unsafe driving and had a suspended license at the time he killed his son, James said.

Bucks County Judge Robert Baldi told Kuhn the crash was not an accident and he had been “willing to risk everyone else for the sake of you.”

The judge sentenced Kuhn to eight and one-half to 30 years in state prison.

Kuhn was convicted in March on charges of homicide by vehicle, accidents involving death while not properly licensed, driving under the influence of controlled substances, retail theft, endangering the welfare of a child, recklessly endangering another person, failure to stop at a red signal, driving under suspension or revocation, reckless driving, and failure to use safety restraints on a child.

“All of this happened because you did it,” the judge told Kuhn. “You caused it.”