A Pennsylvania man skirted jail time for a series of thefts after he got into a car accident and suffered brain damage so severe he doesn't remember doing the crime.
Christian W. Eshenbaugh, 23, was facing jail time for stealing thousands of aluminum rims worth over $33,000 from a salvage yard in Middlesex Township during a two-month period beginning in June 2013, the Butler Eagle reported.
Eshenbaugh was arrested and set to be sentenced, but not before he got into a violent accident in November 2013 when the car he was in crashed into a tree. The driver was killed.
The collision left Eshenbough with traumatic brain injuries that took him months to recover from in a rehabilitation facility, the defendant's lawyer, Stephen Misko, said according to the newspaper. His client's memory and motor skills still haven't fully returned.
"He is just a completely different person," Misko said of his client, who no longer seems to have a propensity for crime linked to drug use like he did before the accident.
Eshenbaugh "turned his life 180 degrees," his lawyer said.
Eshenbaugh pleaded guilty to stealing the rims from Marshall's Junk Yard. A Butler County judge sentenced him to a year of probation and to pay an undetermined amount in restitution to the junk yard.
