Marengo man sentenced to 5 years for fatal DUI crash

A Marengo man was sentenced to five years in prison for a drunken driving crash that killed a 77-year-old man who was walking across the street, McHenry County State’s Attorney officials said Friday.

Daniel Bending, 49, was found guilty by a jury June 18 of causing a death while driving under the influence of alcohol.

Authorities said Bending was driving on Route 20 in Marengo on April 19, 2008 when he hit Leonard Anderson, a truck driver from Prairie Garden in Boone County. Anderson survived the crash, but died the next month.

A blood test showed Bending’s blood-alcohol concentration to be 0.081 nearly 2½ hours after the crash. Illinois’ legal threshold is 0.08.

State law requires Bending to serve at least 85 percent of his sentence.