Rye resident Emma Fox has been sentenced to six months in jail, followed by five years of probation, for the death of Manhattanville College student Robby Schartner in 2016.
According to Westchester County District Attorney Anthony Scarpino, Fox, 26, has been sentenced on second-degree vehicular manslaughter and a charge of DWI for striking and killing Schartner, who was 21 years old at the time of his death.
In October 2016, Schartner was returning from a night out in downtown White Plains around 5 a.m. when he was run over on Westchester Avenue by Fox, whose blood alcohol content was 0.21 at the time of her arrest; the legal limit in New York is 0.08.
After striking the college student, who was found along the shoulder of Westchester Avenue near the entrance to eastbound Interstate 287, Fox drove approximately half a mile before stopping her car, a 2012 Nissan Sentra, near Meadowbrook Road. According to the district attorney’s office, a passing motorist called 911 after noticing damage to Fox’s car.
As part of her sentence, Fox’s license has been revoked and she will be required to wear an alcohol-monitoring device and an ignition interlock device must be installed on any vehicle in her household.
Originally, Fox was facing up to seven years in Westchester County jail. However, in November, Judge Helen Blackwood promised to sentence Fox to “shock probation,” a split sentence that still included time in jail.
In the U.S., a split sentence is a term in which a defendant serves up to half of a term of imprisonment outside of jail or prison.
On Feb. 7, Fox told the court, “There’s not a day since Oct. 9, 2016, that I don’t think about what happened and the pain I have caused the Schartner family.”
Schartner’s mother, Donna Juliette Ann Hall, was not present for the sentencing, but his stepfather, Scott Hall, read a statement to the court on her behalf.
After describing Schartner as “caring, thoughtful, smart and charismatic,” he said of Fox, “People say she’s made a mistake. There was no mistake. You made a decision to drink and drive.”
Last August, the Schartner family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Fox and The Pub, the Rye bar where the defendant drank for hours before killing the college student. As of press time, the suit is still pending.
