ST. LOUIS — Daniel Riley was sentenced Thursday to nearly 19 years in prison for causing the accident that cost a Tennessee teenager both of her legs.
Riley was convicted of second-degree assault, armed criminal action, misdemeanor assault and driving without a valid license during a jury trial March 7. The jury recommended he be sentenced to nearly the maximum sentence on each charge.
On Thursday, Judge Michael Noble ruled those sentences would be served consecutively, for a total of 18 years and 9 months of prison time.
"The jury found that this was not an accident," Noble said. "Mr. Riley, you were responsible for your choices from the moment you walked out of your home into that rental car.
"You chose not to have a valid driver's license for five years, which means you chose not to properly learn how to drive a car, which is a dangerous instrument readily capable of causing serious physical injury.
"As we have seen, you chose to violate the conditions of your house arrest, and you chose to drive that dangerous instrument recklessly. Those choices have consequences."
Janae Edmondson, now 18, appeared in court with her parents to read an impact statement. Francine, Janae's mother, delivered the statement on behalf of the Edmondson family to Noble.
"When you see [Janae] smile, it hides her sadness, it hides her pain," Francine said during the reading. "[Riley] deserves the sentence he was given and deserves to serve it consecutively."
The family was in town on Feb. 18, 2023, for a volleyball tournament and walking to their car, planning to get something to eat when Janae was struck by Riley.
Riley has appealed his conviction, arguing in part that allowing Edmondson to face the jury with her injuries visible to the jury was prejudicial.
During Thursday's sentencing hearing, Riley's attorney Daniel Diemer approached Noble asking to note for the record how Janae was wearing pants and walking on prosthetics unlike how she appeared at trial.
Assistant Circuit Attorney Tanja Engelhardt told the judge Janae had been fitted with new prosthetics since the trial that she did not have when she appeared before the jury.
Janae Edmondson told 5 On Your Side following the verdict the new prosthetics have a new socket to hold what's left of her legs.
"It's a suction socket, so it's much more comfortable walking in," she said. "And just walking, I'm just walking period, and it's just way more comfortable and more convenient."
The case amplified an already growing spotlight on how former St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner was running her office, after the I-Team reported Riley was supposed to be on house arrest for an earlier robbery charge at the time of the crash.
Court documents showed Gardner’s office wasn’t ready to proceed with Riley’s trial for an alleged robbery months before the crash, and did not ask for Riley’s bond to be revoked after about 90 violations on his GPS tracking device.
In the family impact statement, Francine Edmondson noted how Riley never showed emotion at trial or during the sentencing hearing Thursday. A status hearing on that robbery case is scheduled before Noble in May.
"He has shown no remorse, no empathy, because he don't have it, it's not in his soul," she said. "Compassion comes from being held accountable to higher standards.
"He's never been held accountable for for anything in his life."
While the chapter in the criminal case has ended for the Edmondsons, they still have a civil lawsuit against the city, alleging the yield sign Riley blew through before slamming into another car and pinning Janae Edmondson to a parked car, should have been a stop sign.
In the weeks that followed the crash, the city installed a stop sign at that intersection.
This week, City Attorney Sheena Hamilton filed an answer to Edmondson’s civil lawsuit, denying that a stop sign should have been at that intersection.
In its response to the Edmondsons’ lawsuit, Hamilton also asked for a jury trial.
