NEW PRAGUE, Minn. (WCCO) — A driver who was texting when she hit and killed a 79-year-old New Prague man will spend four days in jail after a judge ordered her sentence on Monday. 
 
 A Le Sueur County judge sentenced 48-year-old Susan Ann Russo for the accident that happened nearly one year ago on Oct. 28, 2015. 
 
 The victim, Joe Tikalsky, was a school bus driver who was walking out to his mailbox outside of his home when he was hit. 
 
 The Tikalsky family is choosing action over anger. 
 
 Emma Jean Tikalsky, who was married to Joe Tikalsky for 54 years, said Monday was the first time she and her children met with the driver who hit her husband. 
 
 “We cried together and they begged us, my daughter and myself, ‘Would you please find it in your heart to forgive us?'” Emma Jean Tikalsky said. “I knew that was the godlike thing I would be expected to do and we did. We said yes.” 
 
 The Tikalskys hope other drivers will realize it only takes a split second to take a life and change the lives of so many more people. 
 
 “Four days or 400 days, it really doesn’t matter,” Emma Jean Tikalsky said. “I know she didn’t mean to kill anyone.” 
 
 Joe Tikalsky drove a New Prague school bus for almost 50 years. 
 
 He was wearing his reflective jacket from work when he walked out to get the paper and was hit near his mailbox. 
 
 “It’s even more scary knowing that we have this society that is, I’ll say, addicted to their phone,” Joe Tikalsky’s son Greg said. “His kids were his pride and joy and his grandkids were his pride and joy.” 
 
 The family is working with lawmakers to lobby for more strict and defined distracted driving laws and consequences in Minnesota. 
 
 It is illegal right now to read or send texts while driving, even when stopped at a light. 
 
 “We care about people living and something must be done,” Emma Jean Tikalsky said. 
 
 Russo will spend two days in jail on the anniversary of Joe Tikalsky’s death this year and two days next year on the anniversary as part of the agreement. 
 
 Russo will also pay a $3,000 fine that the family wants used to raise awareness against distracted driving. ||||| Calling for wholesale change in societal views on the public health epidemic of distracted driving, a Le Sueur County judge sentenced a New Prague woman to community service, probation and four days in jail in the death a year ago of a 79-year-old school bus driver. 
 
 "You are a gifted teacher, use that gift," Judge Mark Vandelist said to Susan Ann Russo, seated at the defendant's table in a quiet courtroom filled with a couple dozen friends and family members of both the late Joseph Tikalsky and Russo. 
 
 The judge encouraged Russo because he hoped she would become a force for change after the "absolute tragic consequence" of her distracted driving — likely while texting. 
 
 Russo, 48, struck and killed Tikalsky on Oct. 28 as he collected his morning newspaper from a box on the road in front of his home. Tikalsky was wearing a reflective jacket at the time and was on break from his work as a school bus driver, a job he didn't need but continued because he loved being with kids. 
 
 Amid teary statements from Tikalsky's widow, a son and two granddaughters — as well as from Russo herself — about the tragic crash, there was a call for help with distracted driving laws, especially pertaining to electronic devices. 
 
 Tikalsky's youngest son. Greg, told the court he's begun lobbying for tougher laws, but to no avail. "We have to view distracted driving as we view drunk driving," he said, adding that the latter was once more socially accepted than it is now. 
 
 Susan Ann Russo 
 
 While Minnesota law bans text messaging for all drivers, felony convictions for texting drivers who injure or kill others have been uncommon. 
 
 Emma Jean Tikalsky said of her late husband, "I would wish the way he died might be an example to other drivers to forgo electronics and concentrate on driving." 
 
 Tikalsky's family spoke of a grandfather who never missed a sporting event or confirmation and taught the next generation how to make sauerkraut. 
 
 From the defendant's table, Russo listened quietly. When it came her turn to speak, she tearfully read a letter she had written to Tikalsky, starting with, "Dear Joe." She said her heart aches for him and his family every day and that she would trade places with him "in a heartbeat" if she could. 
 
 "I'm struggling to know how to move on," she said. "It is very difficult to comprehend what I did and make sense of it all." 
 
 Russo said the Tikalsky family will forever be in her thoughts, heart and prayers. "I will spend my entire life trying to make up for my mistake," she said. 
 
 Vandelist then imposed a sentence that had been agreed upon as part of a plea deal. Russo must complete 40 hours of community service with Minnesotans for Safe Driving within the next year, but Vandelist said he hopes she continues beyond the required hours to try to end a growing problem. 
 
 "I would bet that everyone in this courtroom has looked away from the road while driving," Vandelist said. No one shook their head in disagreement. 
 
 The case underscored how difficult prosecuting distracted driving incidents can be. Reading or sending texts while behind the wheel, even when stopped at a light, is illegal in Minnesota. 
 
 Russo told officers at the scene of the crash that she was reading a text before the crash and preparing to send one. But after she entered her plea in August, a forensic investigation found no activity or texts on her phone. 
 
 Based on the forensics results, she attempted Monday to withdraw her plea. Vandelist denied that motion, saying regardless of whether she was texting, she should have seen Tikalsky. 
 
 Russo will spend four days in the county jail divided in two stints coinciding with the anniversary of Tikalsky's death. She serves her first two days beginning Oct. 28 and the next on the same date in 2017. 
 
 Vandelist put Russo on probation for two years, barring her from having active electronic devices in her vehicle or using drugs or alcohol. She also must pay a $3,000 fine that can be used for a billboard warning against distracted driving. 
 
 In a quiet hallway after court ended, Emma Jean Tikalsky and her daughter Mary Jo Dorman approached Russo and hugged her. Tikalsky said it was a moment of forgiveness she had long prayed for. 
 
 Added Dorman, "I wanted her to see that we're moving on, and she should, too." 
 
 Twitter: @rochelleolson ||||| A teen driver profanely rebuffed the pleas of a passenger to stop texting, and as screams of “red light! red light!” echoed in the pickup truck, she struck a van in Sherburne County and killed the other driver and his 10-year-old daughter, according to prosecutors. 
 
 Once authorities had exposed as a lie the initial explanation that her boyfriend had been driving, Carlee R. Bollig, 17, of Little Falls, Minn., was charged last week in District Court with two counts each of criminal vehicular homicide and criminal vehicular operation, texting and driving, and driving without a valid license. 
 
 Killed in the July 21 crash were the van’s driver, Charles P. Maurer, 54, of Becker, and his daughter Cassy. The crash occurred about 8 p.m. at Hwy. 10 and County Road 11 between Becker and Big Lake. 
 
 “It is an illusion to believe that texting while driving is not dangerous behavior,” State Patrol Lt. Tiffani Schweigart, the chief spokeswoman for the agency that led the investigation into the crash, said Saturday. “This behavior is just as dangerous as DWI in that lives can change or be lost in the fraction of a second.” 
 
 Three people in Bollig’s pickup, all friends from Little Falls, also were injured but survived: Deven M. Garlock, 18, George E. Saldana, 18, and Caysi J. Jaronske, 17. The others in the van survived their injuries: Cassy’s sister Alenita, 16, and friend Alora K. Nelson, 15, of Becker. 
 
 Jaronske told investigators that she implored Bollig on at least “eight or nine occasions” since they left St. Cloud to stop texting while driving, according to the allegations spelled out in a juvenile petition. Bollig, however, “refused to comply,” the juvenile petition read. 
 
 Texting and driving is considered to be as dangerous as drunken driving. 
 
 In response to Jaronske’s pleas to stop texting and driving, Bollig yelled and said she “didn’t care if she crashed,” and eventually she told her friend to “f — - off,” according to a search warrant affidavit filed in court three weeks after the crash. 
 
 Just as the pickup was about to enter the intersection, the charging petition read, Jaronske said someone yelled, “red light, red light!” 
 
 Bollig never applied the brakes, investigators determined, the pickup kept going on eastbound Hwy. 10 and it T-boned the van on the driver’s side as it traveled north on County Road 11, prosecutors allege. 
 
 Analysis of Bollig’s cellphone found that she sent and received “multiple electronic messages” on Facebook for eight minutes leading up to the crash, the complaint read. 
 
 Charles Maurer was pronounced dead that night at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale. Cassy, in the same hospital with severe head injuries, died 10 days later. She would have been a fifth-grader at Becker School. 
 
 Cassy was a member of St. Marcus Catholic Church in Clear Lake, where she was a mass server. She enjoyed playing cribbage, biking, fishing, reading and playing games on her iPad. A fundraising page at gofundme.com/8gg894ptg8 has exceeded its goal of $8,000 pledged on behalf of the family. 
 
 Document: A lie is concocted 
 
 At first, “information on the scene” pointed to Garlock as the driver of the pickup, according to a search warrant affidavit. However, he told a trooper soon after the crash that he was in the back seat behind his girlfriend, and when a state trooper questioned Bollig and her sister, they acted on the advice of their mother and an attorney and refused to answer questions, the affidavit continued. 
 
 On July 31, Jaronske revealed to the trooper that Bollig and Saldana plotted to say Garlock was driving and ran the red light because he was the only one in the pickup with a valid license, the affidavit read. 
 
 That same day, the trooper obtained DNA from Bollig and Garlock to help determine who was driving, the court document read. The affidavit said blood was left throughout the pickup’s seating area and hair was embedded in the shattered windshield on the passenger side, offering biological evidence about who was seated where at the time of impact. 
 
 A search of the pickup also turned up a bag belonging to Bollig that held a small amount of synthetic marijuana, a digital scale and a smoking pipe, the court document read. Another pipe was discovered on the front passenger seat. 
 
 The document also noted one more item spotted and collected, this one sitting near the brake pedal: a cellphone. 
 
 Last year in Minnesota, 61 deaths and more than 7,000 injuries were attributed to either driver inattention or distraction, according to the state Department of Public Safety. 
 
 Over the past five years, 19 percent of all traffic fatalities and serious injuries in the state were distraction-related, the agency added. 
 
 A $225 increase in the fine for texting while driving went into effect in Minnesota in August. The increase is in addition to the current $50 fine and applies to second and subsequent convictions. 
 
 According to the state, 3,200 texting-while-driving citations were issued in 2014, a 278 percent jump since 2010.
– A Minnesota woman who struck and killed a man while allegedly texting and driving will spend just four days in jail over two years. As part of a plea deal, Le Sueur County Judge Mark Vandelist on Monday sentenced Susan Ann Russo to four days behind bars, 40 hours of community service with Minnesotans for Safe Driving, and two years of probation for reckless driving, reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Russo, 48—who killed school bus driver Joseph Tikalsky, 79, as he was getting his morning paper on the road outside his home on Oct. 28, 2015—must also pay a $3,000 fine to be used to erect a billboard warning about distracted driving. She'll spend two days in jail beginning on the anniversary of Tikalsky's death, and again on the same date in 2017. Russo initially told officers she was reading a text and about to respond before the crash and pleaded guilty to reckless driving and misuse of a wireless communication device before an investigation found no activity on her phone at the time. Vandelist then threw out the misuse of a wireless device charge, per Le Center Leader. However, he said Russo should have seen Tikalsky—who was wearing a reflective jacket—regardless. "You are a gifted teacher, use that gift," Vandelist told Russo on Monday, advising her to educate others on the dangers of distracted driving. Russo said she "will spend my entire life trying to make up for my mistake." "Four days or 400 days, it really doesn't matter," adds Tikalsky's widow, per CBS Minnesota. "I know she didn't mean to kill anyone." (Texting is the worst kind of distraction.)