DUBLIN — A Tracy man has been sentenced to six months behind bars for causing a 2020 crash that killed one man and injured a woman, court records show.
Brent Collom, 49, argued through his attorney against any jail time for the drunk driving crash on the Dumbarton Bridge in Newark that killed 40-year-old Michael Thomas. But Judge Clifford Blakely ordered Collom to spend 180 days in jail, attend drunk driving classes and pay about $7,800 in fines and restitution, records show.
Collom will get to spend the holiday season at home; he doesn’t have to report to jail until Jan. 10, records show.
Collom was driving near the toll booth of the Dumbarton Bridge on Sept. 13, 2020, when he struck a motorcycle being driven by Thomas with a female passenger. When police arrived on the scene, the motorcycle was embedded into the front of Thomas’ truck. The arriving officer described finding “two bodies” on the road and later discovering the woman was still alive, according to court records.
In a sentencing memo arguing for house arrest in lieu of jail time, Collom’s lawyer said that Thomas was impaired as well, as methamphetamine and cannabis was found in his blood stream. The memo says the defense was prepared to argue that the motorcycle didn’t have a light activated.
Collom readily admitted to police on-scene he’d been drinking alcohol before taking the wheel and failed a field sobriety test. A breathalyzer registered his blood-alcohol level at .103 and .115, and by the time he got to the hospital, he was still considered legally drunk, with a blood-alcohol level right at the .08 level, according to court records.
Collom was charged in 2021, and took a plea deal earlier this year, which allowed Blakely to consider a sentence of up to one year in jail. He has been out of jail while the case was pending, and received credit for a single day of time served, records show.
The sentencing memo describes Collom as a father of four adult children who spent four years in the U.S. Air Force. He told a probation officer that he wished he could go back “make better decisions” before the crash.
“Brent acknowledges that the choices he made were due to his own conduct and his own poor decision making that directly led to this tragic event and that they will haunt him for the rest of his life,” the memo says.