× Thanks for reading! Log in to continue. Enjoy more articles by logging in or creating a free account. No credit card required. Log in Sign up {{featured_button_text}}

An Illinois man who remained a fugitive for more than 11 years in the 2007 hit-and-run death of a 20-year-old Madison Area Technical College student was sentenced Friday to three years in prison.

Felix Romero-Ocotl, 41, pleaded guilty in April to hitting Tomahawk native Lucas Peerenboom as he crossed South Park Street near Regent Street in the early morning hours of March 10, 2007. Peerenboom died at UW Hospital three weeks later. Romero-Ocotl was captured only after he was arrested for drunken driving in July 2018 in Freeport, Illinois, and police turned up the warrant from Dane County.

Over the course of a hearing lasting some three and a half hours, members of Peerenboom’s family appealed to Circuit Judge Nicholas McNamara for a sentence harsher than the one recommended by prosecutors — and the same one he eventually handed down.

“Accidents happen all the time in life. It’s how we respond that shows our true person,” Peerenboom’s mother, Lynn Peerenboom, said. “He left our son broken on the road like he was nothing.”