David Lohr

A Cranberry Township man was denied early parole Thursday, July 13, two months shy of the minimum jail sentence he is serving for striking and killing a 22-year-old man while driving drunk in 2018.

David William Lohr, 56, pleaded no contest to charges of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence and DUI in June 2022, after he struck and killed Aleksander Teimouri of Cranberry Township while he was riding his bicycle home from work at Mad Mex at 11:39 p.m. Dec. 26, 2018.

Lohr was sentenced to serve 22 to 60 months in prison, but was allowed to serve his sentence in the Butler County Prison and granted permission to petition the court to be released on parole after 15 months and serve the balance of the minimum sentence on electronic monitoring.

Lohr’s attorney William A. Jones Jr. petitioned Common Pleas Court Judge Timothy McCune to release Lohr on parole about two months short of the 15 months.

Assistant District Attorney Laura Pitchford objected to the early release and McCune denied the petition, but he issued an order at Jones’ request to release Lohr on Sept. 23 to serve the balance of his minimum jail sentence on electronic monitoring.

Out of deference to the victim’s family, Lohr would have withdrawn the petition if the family had objected, Jones said.

He said inmates are often given credit for good conduct while incarcerated and sanctioned for bad behavior.

“Mr. Lohr has exhibited exemplary behavior,” Jones said.

Lohr works in the jail’s laundry and helps other inmates with their education programs, he said.

An early release would allow Lohr to work and earn more money than he does in the jail’s laundry to pay toward the $1,500 in fines he was ordered to pay as a part of his sentence, Jones said.

Lohr attended the hearing via video from the county jail, and did not address the court.

Pitchford said the sentence was the result of a negotiated plea agreement and Lohr was given a break by being allowed to serve his sentence in the county jail.

She said she doesn’t believe the victim’s family would be offended by an early release, but she is.

“I find it offensive when so much leniency has already been given,” Pitchford said.

McCune said he is glad to see that Lohr has been putting his time in jail to good use, and he hopes that time it helps him learn a lesson, but denied the petition.

“The agreement controls the sentence,” McCune said.

None of Teimouri’s family attended Thursday’s hearing.

At Lohr’s sentencing last year, Teimouri’s father Arul Teimouri asked for the maximum sentence to be imposed, but he acknowledged that Lohr didn’t intend to kill his son, and expressed condolence to Lohr for the overdose death of his son. He also hugged Lohr.

“I apologize as a father,” Lohr said to Arul. Lohr said he accepted the responsibility for killing Aleksander.

“I know the emotions a parent feels when a child is lost,” Lohr said at the time.

Jones told the court that Lohr had never been arrested or even cited for a traffic violation before the crash. He said Lohr joined the Navy after high school when he was 17 years old and served in combat in the Persian Gulf before he was honorably discharged in 1991.

Before the crash, Aleksander had been training to serve in pararescue in the Air Force, and studied premed, biology and chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh after graduating from high school.

More than 500 people attended his funeral and hundreds of people joined to ride their bikes in a Ride of Silence event held in Aleksander’s memory in January 2019 in the township.

Arul said his son was killed instantly, but his body was kept alive for three days so his organs could be donated.