Montco Man Sentenced To Prison For Felony Homicide In 2012 Crash

A Montgomery County man will spend significant time behind bars for a crash that killed a 16-year-old boy in 2012.

Robert Normal Sitler, 47, of Perkiomen Township, was sentenced to eight and a half to 17 years in state prison, according to court documents.

Confusion over who exactly was behind the wheel during the fatal crash, which ended the life of Timothy Anthony Paciello Jr., has delayed the this verdict and sentencing for years.

The incident occurred just before 9 p.m. on Nov. 12, 2013, on East High Street in Lower Pottsgrove, authorities said.

At the time, a passenger in the car, Denise E. Dinnocenti, 46, of Collegeville, told police that she was the one driving in order to protect Sitler, her boyfriend. Sitler was convicted of vehicular homicide/manslaughter in Alabama in 2004, and he had had a “drink or two” prior to getting behind the wheel of the truck that day in November, 2012.

According to police, Dinnocenti’s two minor children were in the rear of the pickup truck at the time of the crash, and she told them to lie about who was driving the vehicle.

Dinnocenti was sentenced to three years of court supervision last year, court records show.

Sitler now faces 3.5 to seven years in prison.

Patch file photo