6/9/11 – A judge Wednesday rejected a request to reduce a 30-year prison sentence for a doctor who killed three people in a rear-end traffic crash while high on prescription drugs. Mark Benson’s lawyer said Waukesha County Circuit Judge Mac Davis was given inaccurate information in 2009, when he sent Benson to prison for the deaths of Oconomowoc teacher Jennifer Bukosky, her 10-year-old daughter, and her unborn child. Benson submitted an expert’s report claiming that his defense lawyer misinterpreted the effects of the drug Ambien as he was being sentenced. The report said the amount was in a normal therapeutic range – and the court was earlier led to believe that Benson’s drug level was much higher than it really had been. But Judge Davis said there were other factors involved in the original prison sentence – including the fact that Benson did not hit the brakes at all before rear-ending Bukosky’s car. The 58-year-old Benson was earlier convicted three times for drunk driving. And although alcohol was not a factor in the death, Bukosky’s father and others have used the Benson case to push for tougher laws against drunken driving in Wisconsin.
