Six years after being sentenced for driving drunk and killing a motorist on I-670, the man who took responsibility wants six months cut from his sentence. The Franklin County prosecutor is calling that a broken promise.

When Matthew Cordle confessed on video in 2013 to causing a fatal drunken-driving crash on Interstate 670 Downtown, the YouTube post went viral.

Cordle, then a 22-year-old Powell resident, promised to take "full responsibility" for his actions in a video that attracted more than 2.3 million views by the time he was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.

Six years later, he wants to be released six months early.

Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O'Brien filed an objection last week, writing that Cordle, through his request, "has broken his promise to 'take full responsibility'" for the crash.

"Cordle should serve the entire sentence without modification," O'Brien wrote. "Why? Because he said he would."

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A hearing on Cordle's request had been scheduled for Monday before Common Pleas Judge Jenifer French, but it was postponed.

It was French's predecessor, Judge David Fais, who imposed the sentence in October 2013 after Cordle pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and driving while intoxicated in the death of 61-year-old Vincent Canzani. Fais sentenced Cordle to six years for the death and six months for drunken driving.

In a motion filed by his attorneys Sept. 10, Cordle asked that his sentence for driving while intoxicated be changed from incarceration to probation.

"Mr. Cordle is a young man who, prior to this case, was a law-abiding citizen who has since learned a hard, lifelong lesson on the dangers and resulting tragic outcomes of driving after consuming an intoxicating amount of alcohol," wrote defense attorneys Dominic Mango and George Breitmayer III.

Cordle, now 28, spent several hours drinking with friends in the bars along Park Street near the Arena District before he climbed into a Toyota pickup truck to head home about 2:30 a.m. on June 22, 2013. He drunkenly took an exit ramp onto I-670 and headed east in the westbound lanes, slamming head-on into Canzani's Jeep near 3rd Street.

Cordle's three-minutes-plus video, posted in September 2013, included a promise to plead guilty and "take that sentence for just one reason" — to encourage others not to drink and drive.

At the sentencing hearing, O'Brien wrote, Cordle's attorneys told the judge that their client would serve his sentence "day for day."

Breitmayer said that promise related to the felony sentence for aggravated vehicular homicide, which Cordle has served. The sentence for driving while intoxicated is a misdemeanor that must be served in the county jail, and it is a conviction that rarely involves months of incarceration, he said.

Probation, Breitmayer said, is more appropriate and would allow Cordle to begin making good on a promise to speak publicly about the dangers of driving drunk.

jfutty@dispatch.com

@johnfutty