KARKKARK reports on the one-year prison sentence former assistant high school principal Keith Hearnsberger received Thursday for a 2017 hit-and-run on Bates Drive that seriously injured police officer Johnny Gilbert. Jr.
Hearnsberger, who had been an assistant principal at McClellan, had earlier told police he wasn’t aware he hit someone that night. He surrendered to police the next day. He didn’t testify at the sentencing hearing, but he had many character witnesses including clergy, for his work in the Episcopal Church.
A Democrat-Gazette report on the hearing said that a police investigation found that Hearnsberger had been with a group of friends drinking the night of the accident.
Hearnsberger got an additional three-year suspended sentence and credit for one day served in jail. He’s currently being held in the Pulaski County jail pending transfer to a prison unit.
