Drunken wrong-way driver sentenced to four years in prison for killing two

A Hennepin County District Court judge sentenced Quoc Thanh Tran to four years in prison for driving drunk the wrong way on the interstate and killing two young people, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Tuesday.

Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Gretchen Gray-Larson argued that Tran should be sentenced to four years each for the deaths of 18-year-old Diana Rojas Martinez and 19-year-old Christopher Bunay and serve them consecutively for a total of eight years. Tran’s lawyer argued for a sentence of probation at the packed hearing Tuesday morning.

District Court Judge William Koch sentenced Tran to four years in prison on the one count and to five years on probation for the second count of criminal vehicular homicide. As part of his probation, he has to do 100 hours of community service each of the five years and attend a victim impact panel to listen to other victims of crimes.

Rojas Martinez’s father spoke when Tran pleaded guilty to the two counts in August. Tuesday, victim impact statements were given by Bunay’s parents and the aunt, sister and father of Rojas Martinez.

Tran admitted in his guilty plea that on Sept. 26, 2017, he had been to two downtown Minneapolis bars and drank about 10 shots of tequila. Around 1:30 a.m., he was driving home and surveillance video recorded him driving his BMW the wrong way on North Fourth Street from First Avenue North and then driving east in the west lane of Interstate 94.

He crashed head on with a car driven by Rojas Martinez near Lowry Avenue. Tran’s blood alcohol level was determined to be .13, well above the legal limit of .08.