Inset: Danielle Bowker (Ocean County Corrections). Background: The intersection where Bowker caused a fatal crash in Manchester Township, N.J. (Google Maps).
A New Jersey woman made her way through the justice system without a prison sentence after killing two people in a highway crash, prosecutors in the Garden State announced this week.
In October 2025, Danielle M. Bowker, 34, was convicted on two counts of vehicular manslaughter in the third degree by a jury of her peers in Ocean County over the March 2022 crash that took the lives of 48-year-old Michael Sadis and 58-year-old Paul Lamberti.
On Friday, she was sentenced by Superior Court Judge Dina M. Vicari to five years of probation with her driving privileges suspended for two years – a drastic departure from what prosecutors requested.
The state”s preferred punishment would have seen Bowker serve three years behind bars for each victim. The state also wanted those would-be sentences served consecutively, or, one after another, according to a press release issued by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.
The underlying incident occurred in Manchester Township on the morning of March 29, 2022. At around 7:15 a.m. that day, officers from the Manchester Township Police Department made their way to the crash site along Route 571 – some 30 miles southeast of Trenton.
There, responding officers found a five-car pileup with one confirmed fatality. The investigation determined Bowker’s 2018 Honda Civic was traveling westbound when it struck a New Jersey Department of Transportation Ford F-550 pickup truck traveling eastbound.
Somewhat miraculously, the head-on collision did not kill either driver directly involved – or the passenger in the pickup truck.
But the same could not be said for two other drivers caught in the fray.
“As a consequence, the Ford F-550 lost directional control and struck a 2012 Toyota Camry operated by Mr. Sadis, pushing the Camry off the roadway into an embankment,” the press release explains. “The Ford F-550 continued in the same direction of travel and struck a 2015 Toyota Corolla operated by Mr. Lamberti.”
Sadis was pronounced dead at the scene while Lamberti was airlifted to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune where he eventually succumbed to his injuries, prosecutors said.
In June 2022, Bowker was charged with two counts each of vehicular homicide, assault by auto, strict liability vehicular homicide, and driving while intoxicated, prosecutors noted. She was formally indicted by a grand jury in February 2023.
When Bowker was charged, prosecutors alleged the defendant was a “recent, active user of marijuana” at the time of the crash, based on lab results showing THC in her system, according to Patch.com.
“Upon reviewing the laboratory results of Bowker’s blood draw, the state’s psychopharmacologist rendered an opinion that at the time of the crash, Bowker’s faculties were impaired due to the effects of marijuana intoxication, and that she could not safely operate a motor vehicle,” Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer said then.
During her trial, Bowker admitted to smoking marijuana the night before the incident. A defense expert also explained that the effects of such marijuana use would have worn off long before the time she awoke and drove the next morning.
Jurors ultimately rejected the marijuana-related charges.
While reading the verdicts aloud, the jury forewoman said Bowker’s recklessness was merely the result of failure to maintain a lane, according to a courtroom report by the Asbury Park Press.
“Reckless driving is not a mistake – it is a dangerous choice that costs lives. This jury’s verdict makes clear that we will hold drivers accountable when they put other lives at risk. Let this verdict serve as a cautionary tale: if you drive recklessly and take a life, you will face the consequences,” Billhimer said in a statement after the verdict. “While nothing can bring their loved ones back, we hope today’s verdict provides some measure of justice and closure for the loved ones of Michael Sadis and Paul Lamberti.”
