By Arica Frisbey, SBC News Director
A little over seven months after his August arrest, 27-year-old Shawn Patrick Woodruff agreed to a plea deal at his Wednesday morning status conference, pleading guilty to a total of five charges.
Originally facing eight charges, Woodruff’s plea agreement drops the open murder charge, a misdemeanor charge of moving violation causing death and two assault charges, a move that Sanilac County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Wrathell called a “drastic reduction in charges.”
By dropping the murder charge, Woodruff no longer faces a maximum of up to life in prison for his crimes. He instead pleaded guilty to reckless driving causing death, failure to stop at a scene of an accident resulting in death when at fault, an amended obstruction of justice charge, failure to report an accident, and unlawful use of a motor vehicle, the last charge being classified as a high misdemeanor. It was also added to the list of charges to reflect that Woodruff had been using his father’s vehicle that night on purpose to avoid using his own vehicles.
As part of the plea agreement, signed just before the March 15th status conference, Woodruff faces a minimum of 20 years and a maximum of 30 years in prison for the reckless driving and failure to stop charges, with additional time and fines from the other charges possible as well.
Wrathell, who scheduled Woodruff to be sentenced at 1:30 p.m. on May 3, noted after revoking Woodruff’s $1 million bond, “Obviously, you can expect to go to prison when you’re sentenced, but due to the reduction of charges, I really don’t have the ability to provide what you probably deserve in this case. But you reached an agreement with the prosecutor’s office [and] I do not have the authority to prevent a drastic reduction in charges,” before adding that he was “thankful that Mr. Green’s family is at least in agreement.”
The charges stem from the hit-and-run death of Ben Green in Croswell on August 8 of 2022, with Woodruff admitting in court that he was aware of his actions that night and that the actions were intentional.
