DUI driver caused fatal crash at downtown Tacoma interchange. Now he’s been sentenced
A 28-year-old man who pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of alcohol and crashing his vehicle at a downtown Tacoma interchange, killing a passenger, has been sentenced to three years, five months in prison.
Johiadia Joshua Elijah Sealey, who was sentenced Friday, went to trial over the Feb. 1, 2023 fatal crash but pleaded guilty three days after it was scheduled to begin Oct. 14, according to court records, admitting to second-degree manslaughter, vehicular assault and felony driving under the influence.
Sealey was driving a Chevy Malibu with two passengers going south on state Route 509 approaching the interchange to Interstate 705 when he entered the on-ramp, failed to negotiate a turn and hit a barrier. The backseat passenger, Jalisa J. Paden, 20, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Paden was found covered in a blanket by responding Washington State Patrol troopers about 15 feet from the crashed car, according to court records. Prosecutors said Sealey and the front seat passenger removed her from the vehicle. An autopsy later found Paden died of a blunt-force injury to the head and neck.
Sealey reportedly failed a portion of a field-sobriety test and his blood-alcohol content was later found to be 0.11 through toxicology testing, according to prosecutors’ trial brief, above the legal limit of 0.08.
The third person in the car, a 20-year-old man, reportedly fled but was later located and interviewed.
One witness reported that Sealey was driving erratically and passing other vehicles shortly before the wreck, according to charging documents. Another told troopers the car had been traveling at a high speed.
The defendant’s guilty plea also encompassed an incident that occurred Jan. 12, 2023 in Grays Harbor County, when Sealey drove a commercial truck of U.S. 12 near Elma and rolled it onto its side. According to court records, he was not injured, and a trooper administered a blood-alcohol breath test that read .093.
The sentence Pierce County Superior Court Judge Philip Sorensen imposed on Sealey was at the high end of the standard sentencing range, which was 31 to 41 months.
