Brazil man sentenced to 14.5 years in crash that killed truck driver

A Brazil family will be without its patriarch for the next decade or so.

A Sacramento, Calif., family will be without its patriarch forever.

That was the overriding message coming out of the change of plea/sentencing hearing of Brian Paul Rosano Monday in Putnam Superior Court.

The 42-year-old has been in the Putnam County Jail since a July 1, 2019 incident in which he, while under the influence of heroin, struck and killed 66-year-old Freddie Smith.

The California man was outside his malfunctioning tractor-trailer along Interstate 70 in Putnam County as a crew worked to repair it.

Having at one time faced five different felonies in the case, Rosano, under the terms of his plea agreement, saw those charges dropped to two:

• Level 4 felony causing death while driving a motor vehicle under the influence of a Schedule I or II substance and,

• Level 3 felony leaving the scene of a property-damage crash after causing death while under the influence.

In handing down a 14.5-year sentence, the maximum allowed under the terms of the plea agreement, Judge Denny Bridges impressed upon Rosano that defense attorney James Holder had done a good job for him, getting the additional charges dropped and getting the maximum sentence reduced from 16 years to 14.5.

However, in handing down that sentence, Bridges lamented the fact that he couldn’t give the Smiths back their father and husband any more than he could keep the Rosano father and husband at home in the coming years.

“There’s no such thing as true justice,” Bridges said. “If there were, I could bring Mr. Smith back. I can’t do that. If there were, I could give those (Rosano) children their father back. I can’t do that, not just yet.”

The judge’s decision came after a hearing that stretched on for more than 90 minutes, with testimony from family members of both Smith and Rosano, as well as a man who witnessed the crash.

That witness was Walter Worthington of Collinsville, Ill., who told Prosecutor Tim Bookwalter he noticed something wrong with a westbound minivan on I-70 that day.

Worthington estimated he followed the van, driven by Rosano, for five to 10 minutes before the incident, as it drove erratically.

“It was very, very unpredictable,” Worthington said. “The vehicle was not acting in a way that would be normal in any way.”

A trained paramedic from his time in the army as well as former volunteer firefighter, Worthington said he was hoping the vehicle would stop so that he could safely give aid to the driver, whom he believed to be experiencing a medical condition.

However, he saw the van begin to drive more aggressively, soon after which it approached Smith’s broken down tractor-trailer, which was being worked on by a Love’s service crew.

Worthington saw Rosano’s minivan hit Smith, but believed the situation was about to get much worse.

“At that very moment, I believed the entire crew was going to get slaughtered,” Worthington said.

Seeing Rosano continue westbound after impact, Worthington followed, soon putting his car in front of Rosano’s to stop his progress.

“I instinctively thought, ‘This has got to end,’” Worthington recalled. “It’s a hazard for everyone else on the road.”

Worthington was followed on the witness stand by three members of Smith’s family — son Warren Smith, daughter Stephanie Smith and widow Rita Smith.

They painted the picture of a loving, devoted protector.

His son spoke of growing up thinking about “super heroes,” but knowing they were fake.

“My dad was one of those men but he wasn’t fake — he was real,” Warren Smith said. “He fought in the Vietnam War. He took care of his family. He didn’t deserve to go out like this, not this way.”

Stephanie Smith painted a similar picture, recalling how her father had watched her kids while she worked and was instrumental in her returning to college to complete her bachelor’s degree.

“He was the person I could depend on. I could call him for anything,” Stephanie Smith said. “He was everybody’s best friend. Both of my kids would say, ‘Papa’s my best friend.’”

Rita Smith, emotional on the stand like her two children, marveled at how intensely her husband had loved his family.

“Fred was my friend,” Rita Smith said. “It’s one thing to say you love somebody, but I was in love with this man. And that man loved me and loved our family. It was a feeling that I hope that everybody could have that kind of feeling at some point. His love was so intense.

“Every morning at 7 a.m., no matter what timezone Fred Smith was in, he’d call me,” she added. “He was the last person I would talk to at night. After 40-something years, it never got old.”

All three family members, having flown in from California and Georgia, were in agreement that the maximum possible sentence was in order.

Though asked the question by Bookwalter, Rita Smith addressed her answer to Rosano.

“I don’t know if there’s a sentence large enough for what you’ve done,” she said. “At some point in your life, you’ll breathe free air again. My husband will never have that. At some point in time, you’ll see your children again and your wife. My husband will never have that. I will never hug him again.

“You took a wonderful man off this earth by your choice,” Rita Smith continued. “You made a choice that’s affected so many lives. It wasn’t just some random guy.”

The widow added that she spoke with some of the crew that was helping with the truck repair and learned of the true nature of her husband’s final moments of life.

“He said if my husband had not pushed them out of the way, three people would have died,” she said. “But my husband died protecting them.”

When Holder called the defendant to the stand, Rosano did not ask for leniency. Instead, he spoke of his own journey with substance abuse, recovery and relapse.

A native of New Jersey, Rosano entered House of Hope in Brazil in 2006. He found recovery there, graduating the program in less than a year and then staying in the Brazil area, first as a counselor at the Bible-based recovery center and later as its director, a position he held up until the day he struck Smith.

In the meantime, Rosano got married, had two children.

He revealed that his relapse came following a 2016 knee surgery when he was given pain medication.

There was a criminal matter in Marion County in 2018 that was dismissed after he got treatment.

“And then we know what happens after that,” Holder told his client. “You ended up on I-70, there were drugs in your system and you killed Freddie Smith.”

At this, Rosano began addressing the Smiths.

“I’ve gone through a lot of phases and I can’t imagine the pain I’ve caused you,” Rosano said. “I think about you and pray for you every day.

“But I know that anything I say to you is cheap.”

Rosano explained that he is losing his own father to cancer, but knows that he can still talk to him on the phone.

“Freddie sounds like a great man. I’m deeply sorry and deeply ashamed that I’ve taken him,” he said. “I’ve taken a husband and father away from my family, but like you’ve said, I can touch them again. I’m profoundly ashamed and sorry for what I caused you. If I could trade places with him I’d do it, like that.”

Ultimately, Rosano asked the judge for “purposeful incarceration,” hoping he could eventually transfer to probation, but “I just want what’s just.”

On cross-examination, Bookwalter noted that Rosano has had 12 criminal cases, been to treatment multiple times and held a job in which he counseled others on how to break their own addictions.

“I could have reached out for help,” Rosano said.

“Why didn’t you?” the veteran prosecutor responded.

“Fear.”

“Fear of what?”

“Letting everybody down.”

“Do you think you’ve let them down now?” Bookwalter countered.

After two Putnam County Jail staffers, Rosano’s wife Nicole was finally called to the stand.

Asked by Holder what consequences her husband should face, Nicole said she was torn.

“I feel like Brian should pay the consequences for what happened that day,” she said. “But my children are the ones paying the consequences of his actions on our side of things. And I am so sorry. I am so terribly sorry.”

She only asked for some way for her husband to transition back into their home, whenever that might be.

Holder later requested something similar in his closing argument. He noted that although Rosano’s position with House of Hope was being viewed negatively by the prosecution, he had helped untold numbers of people in the years leading up to his relapse.

The defense attorney said he hoped that was the kind of positive person who would return to the community several years from now.

“What kind of Brian Paul Rosano would we want living in our community five, 10, 14.5 years from now?” Holder asked. “Lengthy prison sentences do nothing but harden people.”

While acknowledging this, Bridges ultimately handed down the maximum possible sentence, noting aggravating factors outweighing the mitigators.

He noted that Indiana’s justice system is for rehabilitation and not retribution, but that he also believes there has to be some retribution, some deterrent.

“I feel absolutely terrible for your children. I feel absolutely terrible for the Smith family,” the judge said.

“I’m going to do everything I can to ensure that when you leave the Department of Correction you aren’t the hardened individual that Mr. Holder has described,” Bridges continued. “The good news, if you can look at it that way, is I’m going to order purposeful incarceration.”

Instead of probation at the end, the judge said there will be a transition period while Rosano remains incarcerated.

Having already served 658 days in the Putnam County Jail, Rosano will remain incarcerated until at least early 2030, as Level 3 and 4 felonies require at least 75 percent of the sentence be served.