A 20-year-old Monticello man has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for racing along a Sherburne County road, losing control of his car at 95 miles per hour and killing two people on a motorcycle heading the other way.

Cody J. Moen was sentenced Monday in District Court to four years and 10 months in prison in the deaths of motorcyclist Brien Wickham, 31, of Big Lake, and passenger Jacquelyn Lee, 26, of Ramsey, in April on County Road 17 in Big Lake Township.

Moen pleaded guilty in August to two counts of criminal vehicular homicide or operation.

In his plea, Moen admitted that before the crash he had just been passed in the 55 mph zone by a sporty black Cadillac and responded by closing in on the other vehicle and zipping onto the gravel.

It was then that Moen's Dodge Intrepid spun off the gravel, crossed the northbound lanes, a median and then cut into the path of the southbound motorcycle.

At the time of the wreck, Moen's driving record in Minnesota included tickets in the previous two years for careless driving, speeding and reckless driving with a willful or wanton disregard for safety. He was on probation from the reckless driving conviction at the time of the April crash.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482