1 day a year he'll recall -- from jail

A driver in a DUI crash that killed two women is sentenced to be jailed on anniversaries of the incident.

By AMY SCHERZER, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 19, 2002

Four years ago, two young Tampa women tried to act responsibly after a night on the town in Miami.

Nicki Kleban and Amy Buchman were riding in a cab three blocks from Kleban's apartment when a drunken driver slammed into them, killing them both.

In an emotional hearing in a Miami courtroom Monday, the man who hit them pleaded guilty to DUI manslaughter charges and agreed to a most unusual punishment. As part of a plea deal, Scott Hanish must spend one day a year -- the anniversary of the crash -- in jail for the next 12 years.

"We just thought it was appropriate while the families were grieving on the most difficult day of the year for them that he should also be thinking of them," said Miami-Dade County prosecutor Stephen Talpins, who came up with the idea with co-prosecutor George Cholakis.

Hanish, 26, first must spend a year in a state prison. The sentence, which begins immediately, includes two years of house arrest and 10 years of probation.

He was also required to make a formal apology to the families. But his words did little to lessen their pain.

"I will never ever forgive you," Cookie Buchman read from a prepared statement in the Miami-Dade County courthouse. "I . . . judge you and hate you for what you did to Amy and Nicki."

Amy Buchman had been spending the weekend with her friend Kleban, a second-year law student at the University of Miami. At 3 a.m. on Aug. 30, 1998, returning from a night on South Beach, the young women followed the orders of every parent: When you have been drinking, call a taxi. They were on the Palmetto Expressway when Hanish's Chevy Blazer crashed into their cab.

Test results indicated Hanish, then a 22-year-old Florida International University senior from Scottsdale, Ariz., had a 0.13 blood-alcohol level. The law presumes a person to be impaired at 0.08.

Amy Buchman, then 24, was a speech pathologist for two years at West Shore Elementary. She survived four surgeries but died a week later, according to her father, Jacob "Booky" Buchman, retired Ybor City merchant and developer.

Kleban, the daughter of Janet and veterinarian Arthur Simon of Carrollwood, was 23 and dreamed of being a judge. She died in surgery three hours after the crash.

A classmate of Kleban's, Richard Sharp, who had joined them that night, suffered minor injuries. The driver of the cab, Pierre M. Charles, has recovered from his injuries.

The plea arrangement was a collaboration of the two prosecutors. Neither had ever heard of an annual 24-hour lockup.

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