Former WWE star Tammy ‘Sunny’ Sytch gets 17 years for deadly DUI crash

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Former WWE star Tammy Sytch has been sentenced to 17 years in prison plus eight years of probation for her role in a deadly car crash that killed a 75-year-old Florida man.

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The 50-year-old former wrestler and porn star had been accused of causing a fatal three-car wreck on U.S. Highway 1 in Volusia County, Fla., in March 2022.

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According to the Ormond Beach Police Department (OBPD), Sytch was driving at a “high rate of speed” in a 2012 Mercedes when she slammed into a 2013 Kia Sorento stopped at a red light, sending it hurtling into a Yukon SUV in front of it.

Julian Lafrancis Lasseter, the 75-year-old driving the Sorento, was taken to hospital, where he later died.

Sytch pleaded no contest this past August to DUI manslaughter, four counts of DUI with damage to person and two counts of DUI with damage to property, per TMZ.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that Sytch’s blood-alcohol content was four times the legal limit and that there was signs of marijuana use.

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Sytch also had no memory of being involved in a crash when she was later examined at hospital. “She remembered making leftover burritos in her kitchen and that she drank some vodka. But she could not say how much she drank,” according to the outlet.

Prosecutors had been calling for Sytch to be locked up for 25 years, calling her a “a danger to society.”

Sytch, also known by the ring name Sunny, was arrested in May 2022, just four months after she finished an eight-month prison stint for a previous drunk driving charge. The WWE Hall of Famer already had convictions for six other DUI arrests under her belt. She was also charged with threatening to kill a former boyfriend with a pair of scissors in January 2022.

In court this week, Sytch begged Judge Karen Foxman to give her another chance, pointing to the charitable work she did during her time with WWE.

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“I’ve made terminally ill children’s wishes come true through the Make-a-Wish foundation,” she said, per to the News-Journal. “I have done something horrible but I am so much more than the worse that I have done.”

Sytch also spoke about losing her father at age 20 and her 87-year-old mother when she was behind bars. “I never got to say goodbye to her,” she said.

She also apologized to Lasseter’s family, saying, “If I could bring Mr. Lasseter back and take his place I would in an instant.”

The cycle of alcohol abuse, she said, started in 2005 following the death of her fiance, Chris Candido.

“What followed was a huge trend of mistakes that I should have learned from,” Sytch said.

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Her defence attorneys had been seeking a reduced sentence citing “traumatic events in her life … abuse” and failed relationships leading to her “self-medicating” with alcohol. Sytch was also diagnosed as suffering from depression and bi-polar disorder.

In pleading for less jail time, Sytch told the courtroom that she could warn people about the dangers of drinking and driving and not treating mental illness.

“A precious life was lost that tragic day and I’m so incredibly sorry for that,” Sytch said. “I would ask that you give me the opportunity to atone for what I’ve done and then to be released to society to contribute to it in the most positive way possible.”

But Circuit Judge Karen Foxman was unmoved, calling Sytch’s behaviour “fairly egregious” before ordering her off to jail.

Thought of as “the first Diva in WWE history,” Sytch joined the then-WWF in 1996 and worked as a valet for various tag teams, including the BodyDonnas. Ahead of her induction to the WWE’s Hall of Fame in 2011, she told SLAM! Wrestling that Sunny was a persona she switched on that helped her “become somebody else.”

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“I know I won’t be able to keep it together,” she said, as she contemplated her big day. “Because that’s not going to be Sunny up on that stage talking. It’s going to be Tammy talking. You know how I told you about that Sunny switch? Well, Tammy screws up a lot. Sunny never does. So without the Sunny switch turned on, I’m going to lose it and cry. Wish me luck.”

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X: @markhdaniell

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