SOUTHFIELD, Mich. (FOX 2) - A man was ordered to spend at least 74 years behind bars for a wrong-way crash that killed a Farmington Hills couple last year.
Angel Melendez-Ortiz, of Romulus, was sentenced Friday after pleading no contest to 10 charges, including two counts of second-degree murder.
Sentence for deadly crash:
Melendez-Ortiz received 37-60 years for killing 45-year-old Ryan Ambrosio and 37-60 years for killing 43-year-old Jennifer Dormitorio Ambrosio. Those sentences will be served consecutively, so he will spend more than seven decades behind bars.
He was also sentenced to 10-15 years for two counts of first-degree fleeing and eluding police causing death, two counts of reckless driving causing death, two counts of operating a vehicle with a suspended/revoked/denied license causing death, and two counts of operating while intoxicated causing death. Those sentences will be served concurrently to the murder sentences.
The backstory:
In early January 2024, Michigan State Police troopers spotted a stolen pickup truck at a gas station on Eight Mile Road near the Southfield Freeway in early January 2024. Police tried to stop the truck, driven by Melendez-Ortiz, but he fled and continued on the Lodge Freeway before getting on Telegraph.
At one point during the pursuit, he shut off his headlights and made a U-turn so that he was driving south in the northbound lanes before getting back on the Lodge going the wrong way.
Melendez-Ortiz continued south in the northbound lanes before hitting a GMC Terain head-on near Civic Center, killing the Ambrosios.
The couple was headed back from a date night. They had six children who were left without parents.
The Source: Previous FOX 2 stories and court records were used to report this story.
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