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County prison for man who pleaded guilty to hit-and-run crash

The man charged for driving away after hitting a motorcyclist with his vehicle at the intersection of Route 15 and Market Street in South Side last October was sentenced to county prison this week.

Richard Earl Piger III pleaded guilty in Lycoming County Court to an accident involving injury and reckless endangerment of another person in May.

Nearly a year after the crash, Piger was back in court where he was sentenced to serve 10 to 23 months in county prison.

Piger also will be on probation for two years once he is released from prison, according to court records.

Piger, 34, of 148 Alexis Drive, in Loyalsock Township, hit motorcyclist Steven Kopera with his car just after 10 p.m. in South Williamsport, according to an affidavit.

Witnesses who saw the crash told police when they arrived on the scene that they saw Piger driving the wrong way on Market Street and away from the wreck.

Kopera was left with serious injuries including a broken neck.

Piger turned himself in the day after the crash, he told President Judge Nancy L. Butts during his guilty plea in May.

The man faced a maximum sentence of nine years but entered into an agreement for a county sentence.

Piger’s attorney argued for that sentence to be served on an intermediate punishment program rather than behind bars, but Butts went with a county prison sentence.

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