ST. LOUIS (KMOX ) - Daniel Riley, who the man who hit Tennessee high school volleyball player Janae Edmondson last year was sentenced to 18 years and 9 months in prison by Judge Michael Noble Thursday.
Riley was found guilty on four of the five counts he was originally charged with back in March by a jury. The charges included second degree assault, armed criminal action, fourth degree assault, and driving without a valid license. The first two counts are felonies.
The jury had recommended Riley sentenced to 18 years and nine months total for all charges.
Janae Edmondson, then 17-year-old volleyball player from Tennessee at the time, was struck by a car while walking with her family downtown following participating in a high school volleyball tournament in February 2023. A car driven by Riley hit another car and a parked vehicle, with Janae' legs was pinned between two of the cars.
The high-profile crash led to Edmondson to lose both her legs and have them amputated.
Then-St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner was widely criticized due to the driver of that vehicle, Riley was supposed to be house arrest at the time for a 2020 robbery and had violated his GPS monitoring more than dozens of times. The outrage would be the first of a series of criticisms aimed at Gardner that would lead to her resignation in May 2023.
Riley went to trial in March, although he did not take the stand and testify, a toxicologist found that Riley had drugs in his system during the incident and an officer testified Riley was more concerned about some cell phones which were left in his car rather than Edmondson, who lost both her legs.
