Associated Press
CANTON — A former jail guard is facing more than 10 years behind bars for running his family off a northern New York road during a domestic dispute last fall.
The Watertown Daily Times reports that 33-year-old Douglas Matthews Jr. of Canton pleaded guilty Wednesday in St. Lawrence County Court to an assault charge stemming from the October crash on Route 310 in the town of Canton.
Prosecutors say Douglas rammed a car driven by his 65-year-old mother-in-law, causing the vehicle to go off the road and overturn in a cornfield. Inside the car was his 33-year-old wife and their two sons, then 5 and 9. Only his wife was injured. She was released from a hospital the day after the crash.
Douglas was a corrections officer at the county jail. He’ll be sentenced Oct. 14 to 10½ years in prison.