Man sentenced to prison for crash that killed UNLV student

The man convicted of killing a popular UNLV student in a 2009 drunken driving crash was sentenced Wednesday to eight to 20 years in prison.

Vladimir Lagerev was driving the wrong way on the Las Vegas Beltway near Windmill Lane in April 2009 when he crashed his Acura sedan into a Honda Civic driven by 18-year-old Lindsay Bennett.

A jury convicted him in March of driving under the influence resulting in death. During the six-week trial, evidence showed Lagerev was driving with a 0.20 percent blood-alcohol level, more than twice the legal limit.

After listening to emotional pleas from Bennett’s family, District Judge Jessie Walsh sentenced Lagerev, 47, to the maximum term.

A 2008 Coronado High School graduate, Bennett was a member of the Rebel Girls dance team and an architectural design student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Lagerev, a Russian native, was a professional dancer, having performed at the Los Angeles Classical Ballet and once dancing on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.”