Man Gets 5 Months Of Jail In Crash That Killed Burnsville Priest

ROSEMOUNT, MN — A Minneapolis man was sentenced Wednesday for his role in a 2021 vehicle crash in Rosemount that killed a Burnsville priest, Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena announced.

Trejean Derrell Curry, 28, pleaded guilty to one count of criminal vehicular homicide (gross negligence) in January.

Curry was sentenced to 150 days in jail, which can be served in 30-day increments throughout his five-year probation period. He was also ordered to serve 40 hours of community work service.

"Although this was not the outcome my office originally pursued, I had to reconsider the state’s plea offer because of factual disputes, including an issue related to the speed calculation in the original crash reconstruction report," Keena said in a news release.

"In addition, the pre-plea presentence investigation prepared by the Dakota County Community Corrections Department recommended a downward dispositional departure from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines. For those reasons, and with the approval from the victim’s family, I agreed to the sentence that was imposed today."

According to the criminal complaint, in the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 25, 2021, the Rosemount Police Department was called to the scene of a crash that involved a vehicle and a bicyclist on County Road 42.

The bicyclist — who was pronounced dead at the scene — was later identified as the Rev. Dennis Keith Dempsey. Dempsey was the lead pastor at the Church of the Risen Savior in Burnsville.

A test of Curry’s blood found that neither alcohol nor drugs played a role in the crash, according to authorities.

"My sincere condolences to the friends, family members, and loved ones of Father Dempsey," Keena said.