Macon man pleads guilty in hit-and-run crash that injured teen bicyclist

A 33-year-old Macon man was sentenced to 10 years Thursday, five of them in prison, in the hit-and-run crash that injured a 13-year-old bicyclist in 2014.

Vince Carter Jr., pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and serious injury by vehicle during a Bibb County Superior Court hearing.

He said he was pleading guilty because it was in his best interest.

Prosecutors offered a deal that limited his prison sentence and dismissed additional charges of his driving without a license and hit and run.

Prosecutor John Regan said Bibb County deputies were called to Randall Road in south Macon on July 3, 2014.

Witnesses told deputies the driver of a distinctive blue car struck 13-year-old Tyson Dixon as he rode on his bike, knocking him into a ditch, and drove off.

Deputies soon found Carter, who didn't have a driver's license, at a car wash cleaning blood off an 1980s Chevrolet Caprice that had been modified to become a convertible.

Plastic from the car matched pieces discovered at the scene of the crash, Regan said.

Both of Dixon's legs were broken in the crash. He's undergone major surgery and is "learning to walk again," Regan said.

Carter's lawyer, Catherine Whitworth, asked the judge for a lenient sentence -- two years in prison followed by eight years on probation, citing Carter's medical condition.

As a paraplegic, he's confined to a wheelchair and has diabetes. His legs are in danger of being amputated, she said.

While at the Bibb County jail, he's had bed sores, Whitworth said.

Had the case gone to trial, the defense may have argued that someone else in the car with Carter was driving at the time of the crash, she said.

Carter addressed the judge before his sentence, saying, "I was with the wrong people at the wrong time."

To contact writer Amy Leigh Womack, call 744-4398 or find her on Twitter@awomackmacon.

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 5:40 PM with the headline "Macon man pleads guilty in hit-and-run crash that injured teen bicyclist ."