Drunken driver tells victims he's sorry at sentencing

Rodney James was drunk and high when he punched the accelerator and lost control of his Chevrolet Corvette. His car spun off the road, crushing Wah Wong and his son, Jason, as the two men stood in their driveway, unloading luggage from the trunk of their car.

The Dec. 12 crash cost Jason Wong, 22, his left leg, which doctors amputated below the knee. He tried to push his 67-year-old father out of the way, likely saving his life, but the older man still suffered a broken left leg, face and neck fractures and cuts to his spleen and scalp.

On Friday, father and son sat side-by-side in wheelchairs as relatives, friends, and longtime customers of the family's West Seattle restaurant packed King County Superior Court Judge Julie Spector's courtroom to see James, 50, sentenced to prison.

James, who pleaded guilty Jan. 28 to two counts of vehicular assault and agreed he deserved an exceptional sentence, apologized to the Wong family, saying he was devastated by the pain he'd caused.

Spector blasted James for his "outrageous conduct," telling him he should never drink or get behind the wheel of a car again.

Though James faced a standard sentence of 13 to 17 months, Spector gave him an exceptional sentence of 2 1/2 years in prison, followed by 18 months of community supervision.

"Mr. James, you are an alcoholic," the judge said, noting James had a blood-alcohol content of 0.19, which is more than twice the legal limit, and was "very high on street drugs," when his car landed in the Wongs' driveway.

Saying she couldn't be confident that James would be supervised by the state Department of Corrections after his release, Spector took the rare step of ordering James back to her court on Dec. 12, 2012 — the third anniversary of the crash — to make sure he's abiding by her other orders. Among them, Spector banned James from entering a drinking establishment, using drugs or alcohol, or driving a car while he's on supervision.

Before Spector announced her sentence, King County Deputy Prosecutor Amy Freedheim said that unlike other victims of drunk drivers, the Wongs don't have the option of avoiding a particular intersection or stretch of highway where the crash happened. "This is their home," she said of the family's residence on Seattle's Beacon Hill.

Freedheim pointed out that James crashed into Wah and Jason Wong just blocks from where he'd been arrested in January 2009 for drunken driving.

In that case, James later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of reckless driving. After the December crash, a Seattle police officer found several unopened cans of beer in James' Corvette.

Jason Wong said he's undergone "countless surgeries" and may lose his left knee to infection. He told the judge the bones in his shattered right foot aren't healing properly — which means he may never play basketball or snowboard again, because even with a prosthetic, his right foot may not be able to bear his body weight.

"He's taken the things I love away from me," he said.

Jason Wong also spoke of his parents, who immigrated from Hong Kong 35 years ago, and worked the past 20 years building their business, Wah's Jade West Café. The restaurant remains closed.

"I know one day I'll get over this, but my family never will," said Wong. "My parents worked so hard, to see their lives crumble in one day."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com