TAMPA (WFLA) – The widow of a 70-year-old man killed by a drunk driver on Bayshore Boulevard two years ago has been awarded over $17.5 million in damages.
According to a spokesman for the Thirteenth Judicial Court, the widow of George Williams Gage III was awarded $17 million in compensatory damages for her husband’s loss. Another $505,000 was awarded in punitive damages, court records show.
Gage was hit and killed on Bayshore Boulevard in January 2020.
Police arrested Benjamin Ehas, who was 31 at the time, saying he was behind the wheel of a Pinch a Penny work truck when he went off the road and struck Gage, who was walking on the sidewalk. Tampa police said Ehas had a BAC of .234 at the time of the crash.
8 On Your Side previously reported that Ehas admitted to police he drank a double shot of Fireball whiskey, smoked marijuana and consumed Xanax in the morning before the crash.
Ehas entered a guilty plea for DUI manslaughter, a second-degree felony, in December 2020. As part of the plea deal, the state agreed to drop the charge of vehicular homicide against him.