UK Man Serving Time For Crash That Hurt Local High Schoolers Asks For Sentencing Reduction

Friends and Neshaminy High School students, from left, Julia Aquilone, Julianna Mazzoni, Angelique Corsino and Taylor Donnelly, were all severely injured in the crash.
Credit: Chris English/LevittownNow.com

A United Kingdom man serving time in state prison for a causing a serious crash that injured five people, four of them Neshaminy High School students, is seeking a reconsideration and reduction of his 15- to 30-year sentence.

A hearing before Bucks County Court of Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Finley is scheduled for September 29 on the man’s request to reconsider the sentence. The Bucks County Courier Times first reported the news on Wednesday.

Shane Brolly, 25, a foreign national who was living in Philadelphia, pleaded guilty in the case earlier this year and was sentenced by Finley in May to the 15 to 30 years in state prison. In addition, he was ordered to serve and additional three days to six months behind bars for a DUI charge and to pay $62,000 to the four victims for medical expenses, according to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.

The district attorney’s office will oppose a sentence reduction or modification, the newspaper reported.

Brolly and a friend were traveling northbound in his cousin’s 2013 GMC Sierra pickup truck on Bridgetown Pike near Playwicki Farm in Northampton Township when the pickup struck a southbound vehicle after crossing the center line around 10:12 p.m. on Saturday, March 27, 2021. A third vehicle was then involved in the wreck.

Lab test results showed Brolly had a blood-alcohol content of 0.21 percent after the crash. The legal limit for operating a vehicle in Pennsylvania is .08 percent, authorities said.

Shane Brolly Credit: Bucks County District Attorney’s Office

The pickup truck head-on struck a 2019 Mazda CX5 with Neshaminy High School students Julia Aquilone, Julianna Mazzoni, Angelique Corsino, and Taylor Donnelly inside. The girls, then 17, suffered life-threatening injuries. Brolly’s friend who was in the vehicle was also badly hurt.

Authorities said in a court filing that Brolly attempted to pass an Nissan SUV by crossing lanes in the area that is a no-passing zone. While attempting to pass the vehicle, Brolly’s pickup truck struck the CX5 with the teens inside. The force of the crash pushed the CX5 50 feet and caused it to roll over.

Prosecutors detailed the numerous injuries – ranging from fractures to brain damage – were suffered by the girls.

Brolly was hospitalized with injuries and his passenger suffered “serious internal injuries” that required emergency surgery.

Brolly was living in the U.S. a little less than two years at the time of the March 2021 accident. He was illegally living in Philadelphia on an expired work visa when the accident happened and had only a revoked UK driver’s license. He also is a wanted man in Ireland, where he fled in 2019 before he was sentenced for a DUI charge there, according to authorities.