A Minneapolis man was sentenced today for his role in a 2021 vehicle crash that killed a local priest in Rosemount, Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena announced.
Trejean Derrell Curry, age 28, was sentenced up to five years of probation by Judge Dannia Edwards. He was also ordered to serve 40 hours of community work service and serve a 150-day jail sentence that can be served in 30-day increments over the period of his probation. Mr. Curry pled guilty to one count of criminal vehicular homicide (gross negligence) in early January 2024.
According to the criminal complaint, in the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 25, 2021, the Rosemount Police Department was called to the scene of a crash that involved a vehicle and a bicyclist on County Road 42, west of Auburn Avenue. The bicyclist, pronounced dead at the scene, was later identified as the Rev. Dennis Keith Dempsey, the lead pastor at the Church of the Risen Savior in Burnsville.
Findings from a search warrant to obtain a sample of Curry's blood found that neither alcohol nor drugs played a role in the crash.
“Although this was not the outcome my office originally pursued, I had to reconsider the state's plea offer because of factual disputes, including an issue related to the speed calculation in the original crash reconstruction report. In addition, the pre-plea presentence investigation prepared by the Dakota County Community Corrections Department recommended a downward dispositional departure from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines. For those reasons, and with the approval from the victim's family, I agreed to the sentence that was imposed today," said County Attorney Kathy Keena. “I appreciate the perseverance and the hard work of the prosecutors, Criminal Division Head Amy Schaffer and Assistant County Attorney Stephen Grego."
“My sincere condolences to the friends, family members and loved ones of Father Dempsey."