Snowmobiler Sentenced to 12 years in Crash That Killed Boy

CENTER CITY, Minn. (AP) -- A snowmobiler has been sentenced to more than 12
years in prison for crashing into an 8-year-old boy on Chisago Lake and killing him.

Forty-six-year-old Eric Coleman, of Chisago City, was sentenced Thursday for driving the snowmobile that fatally struck second-grader Alan Geisenkoetter Jr. in January 2018. The boy's father, Alan Geisenkoetter Sr., was injured. The family was going ice-fishing when the boy was struck.

The court heard from nearly a dozen members of the boy's family. Alan Jr.'s mother, Ellie Geisenkoetter, said the crash ``has caused a pain that can't be described in words.''

A jury in December convicted Coleman of third-degree murder, drunken driving, criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular operation.

Coleman apologized in court to the Geisenkoetter family. Defense attorneys had sought a five-year sentence.