Sentenced to Send 780 Postcards to Victim's Dad During 15-Year Probation, Defendant Draws a Blank
Charged with vehicular homicide after a 28-year-old Iraq war veteran died in a Florida car crash, Andrew Gaudioso, who reportedly had drugs in his system at the time and allegedly had been driving at 80 mph, didn’t want to go to jail.
And the parents of his victim, Sgt. Thomas Towers Jr., didn’t see the point of pushing for prison time, reports the St. Petersburg Times.
Instead, his dad, Thomas Towers Sr., wanted to know that Gaudioso, who is now 22, is sorry and that the crime is weighing on his mind. “I need to know that he cares that he killed my kid,” he tells the newspaper.
As a result, Gaudioso got an unusual sentence, last month, under a plea deal in the Lake County Circuit Court case. It included, in addition to 15 years of probation and other terms, a requirement that he mail a postcard to the Towers family once a week for the entire time he is on probation. That adds up to 780 postcards, the article notes.
Waiting, day after day, for the first postcard to arrive in the mail, Towers wondered what it would say. When it finally came, the message was succinct: “I’m very sorry.”
The second postcard featured a sand dollar, a symbolic cross and hidden doves of peace. The message side was blank.
