BATON ROUGE - The man convicted of killing seven people during a drunken crash in Slaughter received a decade in jail for each of their deaths today.

A judge sentenced Brett Gerald to 70 years in prison, ten years for each count of vehicular homicide he faced, and pay a $14,000 fine. Those sentences will run consecutively.

After the sentencing, Gerald's family members embraced the victims' relatives outside the courthouse and apologized for their losses.

The minimum Gerald faced was five years per count, and must serve 35 years before he could benefit from probation or parole.

Six members of the Gaines family and a friend of theirs died in the head-on collision with Gerald last May. Police said Gerald told them he'd been drinking at a golf course for several hours earlier that day.

Gerald pleaded guilty to the charges last December. News 2 discovered he'd also been arrested three times for DWI before the crash.

News 2's Chris Nakamoto will have more details from the courthouse starting at noon.