A Marthasville man was sentenced to 20 years for manslaughter in a 2008 motor-vehicle crash that claimed his older brother's life. Keith Sutherland, 12th Judicial Circuit presiding judge, handed out the sentence to Chad E. Mergelmeyer, 29, Tuesday afternoon. Sutherland ruled that the sentence will run consecutive to a seven-year prison term he is already serving. Mergelmeyer was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter by a Warren County jury during a two-day trial June 11-12. He could have received a stiffer sentence, according to Warren County Prosecutor Mike Wright. Wright said Mergelmeyer will be required to serve 85 percent of the sentence. Mergelmeyer has been lodged in the Northeast Correctional Center in Bowling Green since October 2005 after his probation was revoked for a 2003 conviction of second-degree domestic assault. Tuesday's hearing began with Sutherland turning down a request from Mergelmeyer's attorney, public defender Milan Berry, for a new trial. Immediately after the sentencing was handed down, Sutherland noted Berry had filed a notice of appeal. When the sentence was announced by Sutherland, eight family members and friends supporting Mergelmeyer broke into tears. Afterward, a teary-eyed Sherie Kriete, the sister of Chad and Gary Mergelmeyer, was angered for what she believed was a harsh sentence. "Twenty years is too long for something he did not do," she said. "I'm not sure he was driving. The evidence shows he was not driving. I think 20 years for something is a long time. He has a son that will grow up without him and now a mom, too." Much of the June trial centered around who was the driver on the evening when Gary Mergelmeyer, 43, also of Marthasville, was killed. According to earlier testimony from emergency responders and a Missouri State Highway Patrol crash report, Chad Mergelmeyer was driving a Chevrolet S-10 pickup westbound on Route D when he lost control and ran off the left side of the road. When the pickup left the roadway, it overturned causing Chad Mergelmeyer to be ejected out of the driver's side window. When emergency personnel responded to the scene, they located Chad Mergelmeyer lying near the driver's side window. They also said Gary Mergelmeyer's legs remained in the passenger side area while his upper body was thrown in the driver's area. Assistant Prosecutor Kelly Kroeger argued that Mergelmeyer had shown no remorse for the accident in a sentencing assessment report. "We felt it (the sentence) was appropriate under the circumstances," Wright told The Record. "Chad committed a crime. In the commission of that crime, somebody died." During the jury trial, Chad's mother, Donna Mergelmeyer, took the stand and testified she didn't know who the driver was. However, in July 2008, she received a $25,000 insurance settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit she filed against her son. She testified then that she believed Chad was the driver. "It's not fair," Donna Mergelmeyer said following Tuesday's hearing. During Tuesday's sentencing, Sutherland noted he had received numerous letters from Chad Mergelmeyer's family and friends asking for leniency in the sentence. "That makes no sense to me logically and rationally," Sutherland said. "The behavior was exactly the same, but the difference would be a complete stranger or a brother or next door neighbor. A third party was killed." Chad Mergelmeyer's blood alcohol level was .301 - nearly four times the legal limit - when tested after being airlifted to St. John's Mercy Medical Center in Creve Coeur, according to lab analysis provided by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The legal limit in Missouri is 0.08. Chad Mergelmeyer talked quietly during Tuesday's court proceeding mostly with his lawyer. The only thing he said loud enough to be heard was when Sutherland asked him if was satisfied with his representation. Mergelmeyer, shaking his head, responded, "Not really. That's why I tried to fire him."