Hancock County District Court Judge Colleen Weiland on Tuesday sentenced 20-year-old Koh Evan Tsuruta of Lake Mills, Iowa, to up to 20 years in prison for charges tied to a deadly crash in Hancock County in June 2009.

The sentence came after Tsuruta pleaded guilty last month to two counts of criminal vehicular homicide and one count of serious injury by a vehicle stemming from a crash at the intersection of Hancock County Roads B14 and R74, just south of Forest City, Iowa, in which two people died.

Hancock County Attorney Karen Kaufman Salic said Tsuruta was sentenced to up to 10 years in prison for each vehicular homicide count and up to five years in prison for the serious injury by vehicle charge.

The sentences for the vehicular homicide counts will be served consecutively and the serious injury sentence will be served concurrently to the other two, she said. Tsuruta was also ordered to pay $150,000 to each of the victims’ families.

The time Tsuruta ultimately spends in prison will be up to the parole board and his own behavior to determine if the full sentence will be played out, Kaufman Salic added.

“I’m very pleased for the families of all the victims that this part of the process is completed,” Kaufman Salic said.

She noted it had been a long 15 months for her office and the families involved since the crash.

According to reports, Tsuruta was reportedly southbound on R74 on June 18, 2009, when he failed to stop for a stop sign and broadsided an automobile driven by Harlan Derr, 58, which was traveling westbound on B14.

Derr, of Rudd, Iowa, and one of Tsuruta’s passengers, Tyler Brighton, 19, of Lake Mills, Iowa, died at the scene.

Tsuruta and his second passenger, Alexander Mosby, also of Lake Mills, received serious injuries. Tsuruta is confined to a wheelchair because of his injuries.

Kaufman Salic said Derr’s widow and one of his son’s read a victim impact statement aloud prior to the sentencing.

She noted that the brother of Brighton testified on behalf of Tsuruta.