Deaths of boy, his grandmother draw 12- to 30-year term

Fighting off waves of emotion, the woman whose 5-year-old son and mother were killed by a drugged driver confronted the man in court and snapped, "Do you realize what you have done? Do you even care?"

"With all my heart," said Guillermo Fellove, a Cuban immigrant with a long traffic record, at his sentencing hearing Thursday in District Judge Joseph Bonaventure's courtroom.

Jennifer Aarenau was not comforted by his words, translated through a court interpreter.

"My best friend, my mother, is dead and you killed her, and you killed my sweet boy, who was my whole life," said the woman who was wearing a T-shirt that carried a picture of her son and details of the May 13 incident.

"I try hard not to hate you, but you murdered them and took away my reason to live."

Fellove, 53, had pleaded guilty to two felony counts of driving while under the influence of cocaine and at the end of Thursday's hearing, the judge sentenced him to the agreed upon prison term of 12 to 30 years.

Fellove, being followed by police, raced through a school zone and a red light and slammed into the car driven by 63-year-old Hilda Aarenau. She died instantly of massive head wounds and her grandson, Aviezer Aarenau, died minutes later of a broken neck and back.

Both had been wearing seatbelts at the time of the incident on Maryland Parkway near Bishop Gorman High School.

Richard Aarenau, Hilda's husband, told the judge that every morning when he wakes he expects his wife to be next to him.

He remembers that at 6:30 a.m., his 5-year-old grandson, Aviezer Aarenau, would jump on the bed and announce that it was time for him to start getting ready for the school day.

"He never had a chance to live," the grandfather said.

Fellove apologized to the family of his victims and emphasized that he had no intent to kill anyone when he was racing at speeds of up to 70 mph on the city streets, running through at least three red lights as police tried to cut off his path.

"I'm not an assassin," Fellove said. "I'm a father. I have eight children and 12 grandchildren."

Under the plea bargain the judge could have given less than the 12 to 30 year sentence, but Bonaventure said the defendant's history of traffic offenses and a drug conviction since coming to the United States in 1980 justifies the maximum sentence.

"I hope you use the time to think about the lives you ruined," the judge told Fellove.

Deputy District Attorney Gary Booker said the sentence that was part of the plea bargain was just a few years less than the maximum sentence of 16 to 40 years that would have been possible if Fellove had gone to trial and been convicted.

Booker noted that there were 5,500 DUI arrests last year. More than 700 were felony cases and 150 of those involved deaths.

In an interview with the Sun last month, Richard Aarenau said the impact of the incident may be hardest on his daughter, Jennifer Aarenau. Three years ago, when the family lived in Syracuse, N.Y., her husband was killed by a drunken driver who was said to be politically connected and given only a few months in jail as punishment. She has refused to drive since then.

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