Judge rejects 'Neshaminy 4' drunk driver request to reduce jail sentence

A Bucks County judge refused to reduce the jail sentence for a drunk driver who seriously injured five people, including four Neshaminy High School students, in a head-on crash last year.

In a hearing Thursday, Bucks County Judge Jeffrey Finley rejected a defense motion seeking to shave time off the 15-year minimum sentence that he handed down to Shane Brolly earlier this year. 

Brolly, a 25-year-old Irish citizen, must serve a minimum of at least three years, but no more than six, for each of the five felony charges stemming from the March 27, 2021 accident. His sentences are being served consecutively meaning Brolly must serve 15 years before he is eligible for parole. 

Brolly’s attorney William Buchanan, though, argued that the sentence for the charges pertaining to the injuries to Eoin Quinn, the passenger in Brolly’s pickup truck should not be treated the same as the four teen girls who were driving home when Brolly crossed into their lane and struck their car.

DUI driver seeks sentence reductionDriver in DUI accident that injured Neshaminy teens asks judge to reduce prison sentence

Brolly and Quinn had been hanging out for at least six hours before the March 27, 2021 accident drinking alcoholic beverages throughout the day. 

Quinn was also with Brolly at a Northeast Philadelphia bar the men were at before the accident, where other customers begged the men not to get into a car and drive, which Buchanan contended put him in a different victim class. 

Brolly is currently incarcerated in state prison in SCI Phoenix in Montgomery County, but he is scheduled to be moved at an unknown date to Smithville, a corrections facility on the grounds of SCI Huntingdon in Western Pennsylvania.

Brolly pleaded guilty earlier this year to driving while intoxicated and attempting to illegally pass a car resulting in a crash that seriously injured the four high school students, as well as himself and Quinn. 

Three passengers in the car Brolly attempted to pass were not injured.

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The teens — known collectively as the Neshaminy 4 — graduated from Neshaminy High School in June and all are attending Penn State University main campus.

Brolly was living in the United States a little less than two years at the time of the March 2021 accident, according to authorities. 

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.

Toxicology results found Brolly had a blood alcohol content of .21, nearly three times the legal limit for driving in Pennsylvania, at the time of the crash along Bridgetown Pike in Northampton.   

Following the accident, community members organized multiple fundraisers for the families including a GoFundMe campaign started by a Northampton couple who helped rescue the girls that raised more than $150,000 toward the families' medical expenses.

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