Gibson to be sentenced 10 to 30 years in plea deal, Sperry family says

Enterprise file photo — Michael Koff
Andrew Gibson, masked, stands for his arraignment on bail-jumping charges in Albany County Court in 2022. 

ALBANY COUNTY — Prosecutors have reached a plea deal with Andrew Gibson, who will be sentenced to 10 to 30 years for killing Berne resident Lisa Sperry in a drunken car crash in 2021 and subsequently jumping bail after he pleaded guilty to that crime, Sperry’s sister told The Enterprise this week. 

The deal — which relates to the bail-jumping charge that he pleaded guilty to earlier this week — came as prosecutors were in the middle of trying to designate Gibson a persistent felon on the basis of his extensive criminal history, which would have allowed the court the ability to sentence him to life in prison, with a minimum sentence requirement of 15 to 25 years. 

That attempt was abandoned, according to Darrell Camp, spokesman for the Albany County District Attorney’s Office. Camp would not provide details about the negotiations with Gibson’s attorneys, nor would he confirm that they took place. 

Sperry’s sister, Laura Ingleston, told The Enterprise that the district attorney’s office had called her last month to tell her that Gibson’s attorneys had proposed the guilty plea in exchange for a 10- to 30-year sentence, with Ingleston telling them that the family was “totally against that.”

Ingleston said the district attorney’s office wouldn’t tell her “why they made that the solution or anything like that,” Ingleston said. “They just wanted to have a ‘family meeting,’ that’s it, and sit us down and tell us it was 10 to 30 years.”

She said that the district attorney, David Soares, tried to explain that it “wasn’t a violent crime — and I understand somewhat, but not really. Because when you drink then you get behind the wheel, and you fail to keep right and you’re speeding down the street, to me that’s violent.”

Gibson had been driving in the left lane in a no-passing zone when he struck Sperry’s minivan head-on on Route 401, which seriously injured two of Sperry’s sons and Gibson’s passenger in addition to killing Sperry. A motorcyclist whom Gibson had sideswiped just before he crashed into the Sperry family also suffered minor injuries.

Gibson’s blood-alcohol content after the crash measured at .23, nearly three times the legal limit.

That Gibson will not be getting sentenced in light of his earlier crimes — which included a lengthy car-chase and illegal possession of firearms — is, to Ingleston, unfair, as has been the rest of her experience throughout this process, as she’s made clear to both The Enterprise and the district attorney’s office in the past.

“I feel like I’m being steamrolled and I can’t do nothing about it,” she said this week. “It’s so infuriating. It’s like talking to a brick wall when you talk to these people, and it’s just a repeated answer about what they’ve decided they’re going to do.”

The 10- to 30-year sentence is only slightly more than what Gibson had agreed to when he had pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide in 2021. At that time, he was eligible to be sentenced to 8⅓ to 25 years in prison, according to Ingleston. 

“I really want people to look and learn from our experience, that it’s not cut and dry like everybody thinks it is,” Ingleston said of the justice system. “It has been very frustrating and infuriating to go through the past two-and-a-half years with this … and still it seems like we’re getting the results at the end [that were there] in the beginning.”

More Hilltowns News

  • On Wednesday, March 27, the state’s Department of Public Service will hold two public hearings — in addition to an ongoing survey — on broadband that will be an important opportunity for state residents to correct previous maps and analyses that determine broadband availability. 

  • The two towns — one rural, one suburban — will now essentially share affordable housing credits so that Guilderland can use Knox’s typically unused credits to satisfy its large waiting list, while Knox is still able to claim them for its own residents as needed. 

  • The Carey Institute for Global Good will once again host “a series of learning workshops and small public and private events,” beginning in the summer, according to a release that described this as a “transitional time” for the beleaguered not-for-profit.

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