Man Convicted of Arborway Crash Sentenced

WEST ROXBURY, MA - After less than a day of jury deliberations a man convicted of causing a devastating Arborway crash that left one person in a wheelchair and another unable to move or communicate was sentenced to one year behind bars, officials said Wednesday.

If Nikolas Papadopoulos, 20, breaks the law during the five years after his release he will have to go back and serve another year, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement.

Papadopoulos was also sentenced to 2,000 hours of community service and is banned from using social media until his hours are completed, according to the DA.

Papadopoulos pled guilty to the charges back in 2014 but withdrew his plea after the judge issued a two-year sentence, WCVB reported.

Papadopoulos was driving at almost twice the speed limit on Sept. 6, 2013 when he crossed the median, rolled over and hit a pickup truck, according to the DA.

“The defendant made a choice to speed at almost 60 miles per hour in a 30 mile per hour zone, but it will be others who live with the consequences,” Conley said in the statement. “One young man will likely never walk again. Another man, a father and a husband, can no longer hug and kiss his children, or even speak the words of love that are trapped within his heart. And the terrible tragedy is that the crash and all the pain it’s caused were one hundred percent preventable.”

Mark Delamere, a passenger in Papadopoulos’ truck, suffered a traumatic brain injury after being ejected from the vehicle and now uses a wheelchair, the Boston globe reported. There were two other teenage passengers in the car: one suffered severe injuries and the other suffered less severe injuries, according to a statement released after the conviction.

The driver of the pickup truck, Kevin Cellucci, then 33, of Dorchester, also suffered severe injuries and can no longer move or communicate on his own, WCVB reported. Celluli is the father of three children. The truck’s passenger suffered less severe injuries.

“His life will only be briefly interrupted. The interruption in our families’ lives will not end. Our families want to thank all the first responders, the State Police, and the firefighters who helped save the lives of [the victims], and the District Attorney’s office for their tireless effort to see that justice was done,” the families of the two most badly-injured victims wrote in an impact statement to the court, according to the DA.