Tarentum man pleads no contest in Route 28 fatal crash

A 79-year-old Tarentum man faces up to five years in prison for killing his front-seat passenger in a single-car crash on Route 28 in 2021.

Frederick Fattman pleaded no contest Monday to involuntary manslaughter in front of Common Pleas Judge Jennifer Satler, his attorney, Alexander Lindsay, told TribLive. The plea accepts conviction but is not an admission of guilt.

Prosecutors agreed to drop a homicide by vehicle charge, Lindsay said.

State police charged Fattman in October 2022 with homicide by vehicle, involuntary manslaughter and three violations, which included reckless driving, court records show.

Sentencing is set for April 29. State law says those convicted of first-degree misdemeanors face up to five years in prison and a fine of not less than $1,500 and not more than $10,000.

“This is one of the sadder cases I’ve ever been involved in,” Lindsay said Monday. “My client was in an automobile accident where he lost his best friend.”

Fattman, according to data from his vehicle, hit a speed of 145 mph in his 2015 Corvette as he drove southbound on Route 28 on July 5, 2021, according to a criminal complaint in the case.

As he neared the Millerstown exit (Exit 15) in Harrison, Fattman lost control of the vehicle, police said. The car went into the passing lane’s shoulder and spun into the right berm, where it hit an embankment and overturned.

The passenger, Robert Mark Walters, 68, of Fawn, died at the scene. The Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death an accident.

A Harrison native, Walters was a 1971 graduate of Highlands High School and lived his entire life in the Tarentum and Natrona Heights area. His obituary said he was a retired vending machine service technician.

“I wasn’t planning on going that fast,” Fattman told police, according to the complaint. “I usually just open it up a little bit — maybe 60, 70, 80 at the most — and then take it right back down again.”