A hit-and-run driver who struck and killed a Connecticut state trooper on a highway last year pleaded guilty to a manslaughter charge Tuesday, agreeing to an 18-year prison sentence over the objection of the trooper's widow.
Trooper First Class Aaron Pelletier, 34, a nine-year veteran of the force, was working overtime on a traffic enforcement detail on May 30 when he pulled over a driver for not wearing a seat belt on Interstate 84 in Southington.
Dominique Pelletier, the trooper's widow, told a judge Tuesday that she opposed the plea deal and wanted Oyola-Sanchez to serve 30 years in prison.
As he was talking to the driver, a pickup truck entered the right shoulder and struck Pelletier’s cruiser, Pelletier and the stopped vehicle before driving off.
Aaron Pelletier, a Southington native, was the 26th Connecticut trooper to die in the line of duty since the agency was founded in 1903.
