HOLLIDAYSBURG — A four- to eight-year prison sentence handed down to 20-year-old Jacob Ralph Helsel in a 2017 fatal ATV crash will stand, a Blair County judge has ruled.

Despite an appeal claiming the Duncansville man’s sentence wrongly included a three-year mandatory minimum enhancement, Judge Timothy M. Sullivan has decided otherwise. Helsel was sentenced on Sept. 11, 2018.

“The petitioner asserts … that based upon the specific factual circumstances of this case, he was not subject to the three-year mandatory minimum since he had not caused the death of (Mikayla) Focht,” the judge wrote.

“We find it significant the General Assembly chose to use the word ‘resulting’ rather than ‘causing,'” the judge wrote in reference to Section 3742 of the state’s crime’s code describing when the three-year minimum sentencing enhancement is triggered for accidents involving death.

Defense attorney Steven Passarello, in court documents and in court, pointed out that while Helsel’s Jeep struck Focht’s body before crashing into a utility pole, Helsel was not part of the ATV crash, which killed Focht on April 14, 2017.

Police indicate that Helsel arrived after the ATV crashed with two deer on Knob Road in Greenfield Township, ejecting the 18-year-old Focht of Hollidaysburg, a passenger, and driver, Trenton Ross Bilak of Everett.

Prior to the crash, Focht, Bilak and Helsel were at a cabin party with others.

Sullivan, in his order, acknowledged the separate crashes but concluded that Helsel’s actions in the crash were part of “a single ongoing fatal accident” that justifies the sentencing enhancement.

To back up his position, Sullivan referenced statements he found within a state Supreme Court review of Commonwealth v. Wisneski.

In that case, the high court recognized that:

“There is no reason to find that a fatal accident is concluded at the moment the victim expires. … The terminus of an accident is the completion of all the physical on-scene events with a direct nexus to the onset of the incident, a conclusion particularly apropos where more than one vehicle is involved.”

Passarello also tried to convince Sullivan that because Helsel rendered guilty pleas under the mistaken belief that he faced at least three years in jail, Helsel should be allowed to withdraw those pleas. Based on Passarello’s position, Helsel faced 90 days’ incarceration for an accident with serious bodily injury.

In line with his ruling, Sullivan found no fault with the legal advice that attorney Christian Jancula rendered to Helsel when considering entry of his guilty pleas. Jancula, who testified at a recent court hearing, said he believed that based on his review of the state’s crimes code, Helsel faced the man­datory minimum three-year sentencing enhancement.

Bilak, meanwhile, is serving 8.5 to 17 years’ incarceration imposed after he rendered guilty pleas to homicide by vehicle, accidents involving death or personal injury, tampering with evidence and reckless driving. Sullivan also imposed Bilak’s sentence on Sept. 11, 2018. The sentence was affirmed in June by a state Superior Court panel.