Ford rendered the sentence after an emotional appeal from the father of the victim, Augustus Adamopoulos, of Ludlow.
06.21.012 | NORTHAMPTON -- Steven Morse is taken from the Hampshire Superior Courtroom Thursday after he was convicted on two of the eight counts against him on charges related to an August 2010 boating death in Huntington. At right is his lawyer, Michael O. Jennings.NORTHAMPTON -- A Hampshire Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced Steven J. Morse to five years in jail for charges stemming from the boating death of Augustus Adamopoulos on Lake Norwich.
The ten-year-old Ludlow boy was fishing with his father in the Huntington Lake when the power boat driver by Morse plowed over their kayak on Aug. 17, 2010. Adamopoulos was fatally injured and died within hours.
On Thursday, a jury convicted Morse, 37, of Westfield of the misdemeanor version of boat homicide and of lying to police.
The jury acquitted him of the more serious charges of manslaughter, felony boat homicide and operating a boat under the influence of alcohol resulting in serious bodily injury. Morse was also found innocent of three cuonts of child endangerment under the influence of alcohol. Those charges required that the jury believe Morse was either impaired by drugs or alcohol while he was driving the motor boat or that he operated it in a "reckless and wanton" manner.
In his victim impact statement, James Adamopoulos described the horror of seeing his son killed in front of him.
"The most eggregious perversion of the natural order is for a parent to bury a child," he told Judge Daniel Ford. "I have cursed the Universe that I was not the one to die that day."
Ford sentenced Morse to 2 1/2 years in the House of Correction for each conviction.