By Jane Harper
The Virginian-Pilot
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Calling his behavior disgusting, a judge on Monday sentenced a man to a year in jail and ordered him to pay $150,000 in restitution for stealing and crashing an ambulance earlier this year.
Circuit Judge Steven Frucci also suspended Theodore Gasiorowski’s license for a year, fined him $250, placed him on indefinite probation, and ordered him to complete an alcohol and substance abuse program.
“It’s patently disgusting, your behavior,” Frucci said. “What you did was put the citizens of Virginia Beach’s health and public safety at risk.”
Gasiorowski, 28, pleaded guilty in July to grand theft and DUI.
The series of events leading up to the crash began on the evening of April 19. Gasiorowski had gone to a party after work that night and drank several highly potent cocktails. He got into a fight with his brother at the party and left on foot.
Surveillance video at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital captured Gasiorowski climbing into an ambulance that had been left running outside the emergency area at about 9:30 p.m., shortly after the crew walked in with a patient.
He crashed it into a grassy lot next to a house about 4 miles away. The vehicle flipped four times before landing on its roof.
When a police officer asked Gasiorowski how much he drank that night, he replied “a sh-t ton.” His blood alcohol content tested between 0.24 and 0.27 percent after the crash—three times the legal limit of 0.08 percent.
“There is no other way to put it. This is just a very stupid act by someone who had way too much to drink,” defense attorney Charles Pincus III told the judge. “He’s sincerely remorseful.”
The ambulance belonged to the Princess Anne Courthouse Volunteer Rescue Squad, which paid for it primarily with donations, said Bruce Nedelka, a spokesman for the city’s emergency services. The squad already was down one ambulance when Gasiorowski totaled the one he stole, Nedelka said.
The volunteer group has been borrowing ambulances from other squads in the meantime, he said, and has a new one on order. The cost of replacing the one Gasiorowski destroyed, and the equipment inside it, is estimated to be about $300,000.
Prosecutors agreed to only require Gasiorowski to pay half the cost since there wasn’t much hope of getting him to pay the full amount, prosecutor Emily Woodley said. “Anything is better than nothing,” she said. They also agreed to set his payments at $100 a month.
“You might as well make it a million dollars,” the judge said. “Because at that rate, it’s going to take him 125 years to pay it.”
Copyright 2018 The Virginian-Pilot