WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — John Goodman, the Florida polo tycoon who infamously adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend, was sentenced this afternoon to 16 years in prison for his DUI manslaughter conviction over a 2010 traffic accident in which a 23-year-old was killed.
Goodman,48, the founder of the International Polo Club Palm Beach, was also fined $10,000 and had his driver’s license permanently revoked.
Prosecutors claimed Goodman had over a dozen drinks before his Bentley crashed into 23-year-old Scott Wilson’s Hyundai, slamming Wilson’s car into a canal where he drowned in February 2010 in Wellington, Fla.
The millionaire said the cause of the crash had been a malfunction in his Bentley’s brakes, and said he walked away from the accident to get help because his cell phone was out of battery power.
Bewildered due to a concussion, broken wrist, fractured sternum and the aggravation of a previous back injury, Goodman said he ended up stumbling into the residence of an acquaintance. Once there, he began drinking liquor to reduce his pain.
He explained his .177 blood alcohol content level three hours after the accident on the post-crash drinking binge.
Goodman garnered headlines earlier this year when court documents in a civil lawsuit stemming from the same accident revealed he had adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend as his daughter.
Goodman, the heir to an air conditioning fortune, has said through his attorneys that he adopted Heather Colby Hutchins to better manage a trust fund for his two biological children.
Attorneys for Wilson’s parents allege the adoption was an attempt to shield assets.
With NewsCore and AP