Hilton Head man sentenced to 15 months in prison after deadly island crash in 2018
A Hilton Head Island man was sentenced to one year and three months in prison after pleading guilty to driving under the influence in a 2018 fatal crash.
Brandon Eric Biggins, 29, of Hilton Head pleaded guilty to one count of felony driving under the influence resulting in death in December 2019 and received his official sentence Friday, according to court documents.
On July 29, 2018, Biggins ran off the right side of Arrow Road at 1:20 a.m. and crashed a 1994 Mercedes, ejecting his passenger, Tyler Lichtman, 27, of Hilton Head. Lichtman died of his injuries at the scene.
A civil lawsuit, filed by Lichtman’s family months after the crash, said that Biggins had a blood alcohol concentration of 0.16, which is double the legal limit permitted to drive.
Circuit Judge Edgar Dickson, of Orangeburg, S.C., sentenced Biggins to 15 months in prison and three years of probation on March 31. The sentence didn’t go into effect until Friday, when Biggins turned himself in, because of some health-related issues, 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office spokesperson Jeff Kidd said.
On Monday morning, a reporter left a message for and emailed Sam Bauer, a Hilton Head-based attorney who represented Biggins.
Kidd said the Solicitor’s Office asked the judge for eight years in prison for Biggins. While defendants or jurors are the ones who decide on guilt, judges have final say on sentencing after hearing arguments from the prosecution and defense.
Night of the crash
At around 10 p.m. on July 28, 2018, Biggins, then 25, got off his shift as a bartender at a seafood restaurant on the island and met his parents at a country music event. He had two drinks, went to another bar with his parents and had two more, before he ran into his friend Lichtman, according to a court deposition.
He had driven to a BP gas station to fill up his car and buy beer when he ran into Lichtman, and the two men decided to catch up at the nearby Hurricane Bar, of Black Marlin Bayside Grill, the deposition said.
They each had a Bud Light and an “Irish Car Bomb,” which combines Guinness, Irish whiskey, and Irish cream and is consumed in a single gulp, the document said.
It was after 1 a.m. when the two men were driving back to the gas station together. Biggins then “lost control of his motor vehicle, ran off the road into a ditch and flipped the motor vehicle upside down at which time the deceased was ejected ... [and] ultimately led to his death,” the lawsuit brought by Lichtman’s family said.
Police said Biggins was wearing a seat belt, and Lichtman was not.
A few days after the crash, Biggins was charged with felony DUI resulting in death. A magistrate judge set his bond at $200,000, which a bond company helped pay to secure his release from jail. He was on home detention on Hilton Head since his arrest, according to Biggins’ deposition. He began attending Alcoholics Anonymous on a regular basis.
Almost nine months after the crash, the Lichtman family accused Bayside Grill, Inc., the SERG Group and Black Marlin LLC of over serving Biggins and allowing him to leave the bar while visibly intoxicated, their lawsuit complaint said.
The entities denied the claims.
In a March 2021 court filing, lawyers for Bayside Grill argued that Lichtman was “an active participant in the driver’s intoxicated state” by drinking the Irish car bomb with Biggins and denied liability.
Two months later, however, a judge signed off on a settlement agreement reached for $400,000 for the Lichtman family, court documents show. Biggins’ insurance covered $100,000 and $300,000 came from Bayside Grill’s insurance.
This story was originally published April 11, 2022 at 2:40 PM.
