For the first time since he drunkenly slammed his Chevrolet Camaro into nine bicyclists on Esplanade Avenue after the Endymion parade in March, Tashonty Toney stood in a courtroom Tuesday and told the families and friends of the two riders he killed and the seven he injured that he was sorry.

The judge said she didn't believe him and handed him a sentence of over 90 years behind bars.

“While your words sound like that you are sorry, I don’t think that your actions meet your words,” Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Laurie White said. "You've pleaded guilty here, and that is worth something. But you must have been blind drunk and unconscious in the car to speed down a busy street where bicycles and pedestrians (were) on a post-parade evening.”

Toney, 32, had pleaded guilty as charged on Monday to two counts of vehicular homicide with a blood-alcohol concentration above 0.2% in the deaths of Sharree Walls, 27, and David Hynes, 31.

He had essentially thrown himself on the judge’s mercy, but White handed him the maximum allowable sentence on every count. She gave Toney 30 years for each death and ran those terms consecutive to the 30 years and six months imprisonment she handed Toney for the seven people he injured. She also gave him six months for smashing other vehicles.

The sentencing came soon after Toney took to the stand to apologize for the first time. But his attempt at mitigating his crime backfired, and crash survivors gasped, when Assistant District Attorney Jason Napoli revealed that Toney was caught on a recorded jailhouse phone call laughing after gut-wrenching victim-impact testimony in court on Monday.

Toney's sister also referred to Walls’ parents, who are black, with a racial slur.

+11 Drunk driver who hit bicyclists on Esplanade after Endymion parade, killing 2, pleads guilty Sharree Walls and David Hynes spent their last day laughing and talking about the future, their friends said in court on Monday.

Police said Toney rampaged through the Esplanade bike lane at speeds around 80 mph, plowing through two groups of bicyclists on the night of March 2, then abandoned his car and tried to run.

He was caught blocks away and charged with 16 counts of various crimes. He pleaded guilty to 14 counts last week and to the more serious vehicular homicide counts on Monday.

Toney had sat stone-faced on Monday as survivors of the crash and relatives of the deceased cyclists gave statements for more than two hours.

On Tuesday, he and his relatives said they were remorseful for his actions.

His mother, Debra Toney, told the court that he had taken care of her while she was undergoing chemotherapy treatments for stage III breast cancer in the past few years. His sister said Toney had become a father figure for her children after their dad died.

Toney said he was pained by the fallout from the fatal wreck.

“This is something I gotta live with for the rest of my life. I probably will never forgive myself for it,” he said. “I wish I could trade places with them. If I could, I would. I truly am sorry.”

Toney said he rarely drank and that his friends had served him tequila on the day of the wreck because it was his 32nd birthday. He also maintained that he didn't remember getting behind the wheel of his vehicle or hitting cars and nine cyclists over the course of several blocks.

“I’ve never been that type of person. I’m not a violent person,” Toney said. “Every day I wake up, I see myself on the news, and the news has painted me as this villain.”

But Napoli turned the tables on Toney and his family during cross-examination.

Most dramatically, he played a phone call from the New Orleans jail between Toney and one of his sisters on which they could be heard laughing soon after the harrowing testimony from witnesses such as Hynes’ widow and Walls’ parents.

White pointed out with a sigh that jail phone calls begin with a message warning the callers that their words are being recorded.

Speaking on the call, Toney’s sister said the worst part of Monday's testimony was “those two (expletive)" N-words, in an apparent reference to Walls’ parents, who had called for Toney to receive a stiff sentence. The Walls and Toney families are both black.

“That’s the sympathy you have for Sharree Walls and her parents, right? Because the truth is, this is all a show, right?” Napoli said to Toney.

The sister said that despite the comments, the family was sorry and prayed for the victims. Toney said the laughter was his way of trying to cheer up his family.

Meanwhile, Napoli also questioned whether Toney had learned his lesson, as some family members asserted. He pointed out that Toney had been arrested on a driving while intoxicated count in Slidell in 2016.

+3 Algiers, CBD would see safer bike lanes soon under new vision for bicycling in New Orleans Algiers and areas in and around the Central Business District would be the first to see new, safer bicycle lanes under a long-term plan to imp…

Toney said he wasn’t guilty of that crime. White said he apparently was not convicted but that she still found the incident significant.

The judge said that despite her long experience, she was still shocked by the video of the blocks-long carnage on Esplanade Avenue, which was caught on city crime cameras.

“You were plowing through human beings like they weren’t there,” White said.

After the hearing, Walls’ mother said she was hurt and angry when she heard the jail phone call but kept her composure to honor her daughter. She praised the judge’s decision.

“Justice was served. I can’t get my baby back, I can’t get David back, but at least, at the very least, we got justice,” Lois Benjamin said.

Bicyclist killed after being hit by car on St. Charles Avenue; memorial planned A bicyclist died after being hit by a car on St. Charles Avenue on Monday morning, according to New Orleans officials.

Benjamin called on drivers not to get behind the wheel drunk, and District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro echoed that message in a statement noting that this year's Endymion parade was the second in three years to be marred by a drunken driver.

In 2017, drunk driver Neilson Rizzuto injured dozens of people who were watching the parade on Carrollton Avenue.

"Do not drive when under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Do not make others pay the price these families have been made to endure. And do not place your own life and liberty at risk when ride-share options and taxis are so readily available," Cannizzaro said.

Toney's attorney, Ralph Whalen, said he would appeal the sentence but declined further comment.