UNIFEST Accident Driver Sentenced to 25 Years

Tonya Bell, the woman who crashed her car into a crowd at the UNIFEST street festival in June after a crack cocaine binge, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison. Bell injured almost 50 people, many of them seriously, at the annual soul-food festival held by the Union Temple Baptist Church along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE in Anacostia.

Bell, of Oxon Hill, had faced 15 to 25 years after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors, and so was sentenced today to the maximum prison term. Ten victims spoke today at the sentencing hearing in D.C. Superior Court to describe their injuries.