Dawn Simas listens as she is sentenced in Superior Court yesterday. Robert Ciresi, her lawyer, is at left.

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The Providence Journal / Bill Murphy

PROVIDENCE — Despite her apologies, a 29-year-old Coventry woman with a history of volunteer work — and no criminal record — was sent to prison for 10 years yesterday for killing a 17-year-old Warwick boy while driving recklessly under the influence of alcohol and marijuana.

Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. said he doubted Dawn M. Simas was a potential repeat offender, but he told her she needed to go to prison for a significant amount of time because of the seriousness of her crime.

On Dec. 15, 2006, a highly intoxicated Simas turned down the offer of a friend who had volunteered to take her home from Town Hall Bowling Lanes in Johnston. Prosecutors say her blood-alcohol content was .17 percent — more than twice the legal limit — and she was driving 71 mph when she hit a vehicle driven by Anthony Gemma on Route 6. He was killed.

Immediately after the head-on crash, Simas tried to hide a small container of marijuana cigarettes from authorities.

She pleaded no contest to the charges in October.

Describing her offense as “unforgivable,” Darigan sentenced Simas to 15 years — 10 to serve in prison followed by five years probation — for her conviction on the count of driving under the influence, death resulting.

His judgment followed highly emotional testimony and a legal discussion that touched on drunken, underage drivers in recent fatalities in Rhode Island. The sentence comes after a string of cases in which defendants received far less prison time, or none at all, for killing people while driving under the influence.

Simas, the mother of a 13-year-old boy with special needs, tearfully told Gemma’s family that she was sorry and she asked the court to consider the welfare of her two teenage children. Her lawyer asked for home confinement, and immediately after her sentencing he asked that Simas be allowed to spend one last weekend with her two boys. He was denied.

Seconds later, she held out her hands to a bailiff.

As her family and friends wept, handcuffs were snapped around her wrists. She was led from Darigan’s chambers at a swift pace.

THE SIGHT BROUGHT little comfort to Gemma’s family.

“Nobody really won,” said Gemma’s grandfather, Ralph Gemma, a retired Providence police officer who wants the public to put extra thought into alcohol consumption. “Nothing will bring Anthony back to his mother.”

Kathleen Gemma told Darigan about the telephone call that sent her to the hospital, where she found her son dead, lying on a gurney.

Fighting tears, she characterized him as “my beautiful, athletic, funny, love-of-my-life son” and as a boy who had lived a vibrant life, blessed with opportunities for travel and athletics, including hockey. He had vacationed with her in the Bahamas shortly before his death. He went to the gym with her regularly and he telephoned her three or four times a night from his job.

“We had a special, mother-son bond,” she said.

She told the court that she would never see her son earn a diploma, or get married, or play hockey again.

“I will never become a grandmother,” she said. “I will never see Anthony again until it is my turn to join him in heaven.”

From the first minute of testimony, Simas was in tears.

“I am so sorry for everything I have done,” she said. “I know I am the only one responsible for this horrible accident. I will deal with that for the rest of my life.”

“I don’t expect anyone here to easily forgive me, because I cannot forgive myself,” she said.

Simas, of 60 Read Ave., worked as a support technician for Capital Video Corp. in Cranston at the time of the crash, according to the police.

Her experience with her disabled son fostered an interest in helping people with disabilities, according to her lawyer, Robert Ciresi. She had received some training for such a job and she also had volunteered for Meals on Wheels, said Ciresi, who found it hard to keep composure during his comments.

“In 48 years of practice, I’ve never had such emotional feelings about a case,” said Ciresi.

Tests show that Simas has been drug-free for a year, he said.

Assistant Attorney General Cindy Soccio pushed for the 10-year-term.

She said Simas’ blood-alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit.

Soccio analyzed previous cases in which judges issued lighter sentences. In those cases, the victims’ families had requested less prison time or the victims themselves were friends who had been drinking, too, she said.

Darigan said he looked at the necessity of imprisoning Simas to protect society; providing retribution as punishment; deterring other people from committing such crimes; and rehabilitating her to prepare to reenter society.

He described Simas as someone who is “probably a very good person” who would not end up in court again.

Also, sentences have little effect in deterring drunken driving, he said.

“We are not able to deter people from crimes of this nature, no matter what we try,” he said.

Looking at friends of Anthony Gemma, many of them wearing T-shirts with images of the victim, Darigan noted that if they’ve read the newspaper they should know what’s happening in the town of Barrington.

Soccio suggested that Darigan send a message to students around the state.

“This court does not attempt to send messages,” he said. “But the court hopes people will learn by what they hear here.”

Simas killed someone, he said.

“For that, there has to be retribution,” he said. “There has to be punishment.”

Darigan sentenced her to 10 years to serve concurrently on the charge of driving to endanger, death resulting. She also received a suspended, one-year prison term and a year’s probation for possession of marijuana.

“A 10-year penalty is commensurate with the level of pain and devastation she caused Anthony Gemma’s friends and relatives,” Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said yesterday.

The length of the sentence doesn’t matter, Ralph Gemma said. The important thing, he said, is to get the word out and find ways to keep people from binge alcohol consumption and from drinking and driving.

mreynold@projo.com