AUBURN - An Auburn father pleaded guilty in Cayuga County Court Tuesday to causing his daughter's death by driving drunk and crashing the car she was ejected from in exchange for a promise he will be sentenced to five to 10 years in state prison.

Jerry Lamphere, 31, currently held in Cayuga County Jail and with a last known address of 57 West St., Auburn, told Cayuga County Surrogate Judge Mark Fandrich three times that “Yes, sir,” he was guilty of the felony of second-degree manslaughter and the misdemeanors of endangering the welfare of a child and driving while intoxicated.

Brooke Lamphere, 4, was not in a child seat when she died in the July 21 one-car crash on Potter Road in Throop. Brooke was partially ejected through the rear window and suffered deadly trauma to her body. Another older child passenger who was in the backseat of Lamphere's Dodge with Brooke was not seriously injured when Lamphere's car entered a ditch on the west side of Potter Road, flipped over and came to rest on its wheels.

“I wasn't going fast,” Lamphere said, getting emotional during his plea allocution. “If I could turn back time, I would.”

“Jerry has always accepted his responsibility for this,” said Doug Bates, Lamphere's attorney, in an interview. “He's been devastated.”

Lamphere said he did not feel intoxicated that night. He said he had a dispute with his wife, Stacey L. Lamphere. When she left her Seymour Street residence, Lamphere put the two girls in his car to go get some pizza, he said. When he came back, he saw Auburn police in front of his wife's residence, so Lamphere said he decided to take a back way home to avoid them. But he said he was not pursued by police and that the allegation he threatened to drive off a high point was related to an earlier, separate incident.

Authorities described a much more tense situation than Lamphere did.

Police said Stacey fled to her mother's home on Washington Street to call law enforcement after Jerry arrived intoxicated at her apartment and caused a disturbance. They said Lamphere called Stacey with the threat to drive off a cliff with his daughter and another child. When police responded to the domestic, they said Lamphere ignored their overhead lights and speeded away.

Cayuga County District Attorney James Vargason was confident his office would be able to prove that Lamphere had threatened in a phone call to Stacey to drive off a cliff with the young girls.

“If this matter proceeded to trial, we would be able to establish he made a comment during a telephone call while operating the motor vehicle that he was going to Long Hill to drive himself and the kids off the hill. That was made during the course of his continuing conduct,” Vargason said.

A threat along those lines had been made in a separate incident, Bates said, but Lamphere's intent the night of Brooke's death only was to avoid the police.

If Lamphere had been a responsible parent, Brooke would not have died, Vargason said.

“The little girl did not have to die if he just acted responsibly,” Vargason said.

Bates said that Lamphere's guilty plea was sensible because of the 7.5 to 15 year sentence he would have faced for the top count if he was convicted in a trial and because emotions in a jury trial probably would have clouded the legal issues in the case, such as that an alkasensor test showed Lamphere had a .07 blood alcohol count while a blood test showed he had .10 blood alcohol count. New York's legal driving intoxication limit is a .08 BAC.

“I'm not a predictor of results. We had asked for a bench trial,” Bates said. “The whole issue was too inflammatory. An infant child was eviscerated.”

Lamphere was convicted in 1995 of the felony of second-degree assault. Lamphere also was convicted in 2004 of domestic violence-related menacing and harassment charges. Stacey has an order of protection against Jerry that he is not to harass, annoy or intimidate her.

Lamphere's sentencing is scheduled for April 24.

Staff writer Amaris Elliott-Engel can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 282 or at amaris.elliot-engel@lee.net