FORT WALTON BEACH — A woman who was sentenced to 30 months in prison for DUI manslaughter in May 2011 has been resentenced by order of the Florida’s First District Court of Appeal.
Franziska Schroff will serve a four-year minimum mandatory prison term, then spend two years under house arrest and another nine years on probation.
Okaloosa County Circuit Court Judge William Stone ordered the sentence at a hearing Tuesday.
Stone originally suspended all but 30 months of a 15-year sentence for Schroff, who was driving under the influence when she hit a utility pole and killed a passenger in her car.
Schroff was 20 on Oct. 12, 2010, when she and co-worker Robyn Jade Rogers, 22, left work to go to the Red Door Saloon.
Schroff wasn’t old enough to drink, so Rogers bought shots and they drank them in the bar’s restroom before they left, according to law enforcement reports.
Schroff, whose blood-alcohol level at the time of the wreck was 0.154, veered off U.S. Highway 98 in Destin and hit a utility pole near the Donut Hole about 4:30 a.m., according to reports. Rogers, of Fort Walton Beach, was killed in the crash.
Schroff told investigators she thought she and Rogers were being followed and ran off the road when she looked back.
At her first sentencing hearing, Stone weighed Assistant State Attorney Angela Mason’s argument for 10 years in prison against defense attorney David Oberliesen’s plea to allow Schroff to remain free and do good by speaking to young people about the dangers of drinking and driving.
“It doesn’t matter what I do here today. There’s going to be pain for everybody involved,” Stone said in issuing the original sentence.
The state attorney’s office appealed the sentence, arguing that DUI manslaughter carries a state-dictated minimum sentence of four years. The appeals court agreed.
Under terms of her probation, Schroff’s driver license will be permanently revoked and she will have to speak to groups of young people six times a year and show them a photograph of Rogers.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.