Guilty of 2021 UNF student death to be sentenced on Friday

Michael Motley, 62, killed 22-year-old Megan Mooney in a car accident in August 2021. His sentencing is scheduled for 10 am.

JACKSONVILLE, Florida. The St. Augustine man responsible for the death of a University of North Florida student in 2021 while drunk driving will be sentenced in a Duval County courtroom Friday.

Michael Motley, 62, killed UNF student Megan Mooney in a drunk driving accident on U.S. Highway 1 and Gran Bay Boulevard around 3 a.m. in August 2021, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. Investigators say Motley, who was 61 at the time of the incident, was arrested more than a year after Mooney’s death.

According to court records, Motley is charged with drunken manslaughter, vehicular homicide and driving under the influence with infliction of damage. The FHP accident report stated that Motley had a blood alcohol level of .174, more than double the legal limit.

Mooney, who was 22 when she was murdered, was a criminologist and a UNF golfer. She also worked as a cashier at Publix and worked as a security guard at the Surfer Bar in Jacksonville Beach. She was also a member of the Delta Gamma sorority.

The Mooney family sent the following statement to First Coast News in August 2022 after Motley’s arrest, remembering their lost loved one:

“Meghan’s parents, John and Carrie Mooney, and her 2 brothers, Johnny and Kevin Mooney, have been devastated this entire year, living without their beautiful daughter and sister. We finally got some great news on the phone last Thursday 26th August from the FHP host. Detective Corporal Jason Tolman that Michael Motley had finally been arrested, and that Corporal Tolman was the one to arrest him, which meant a lot to us, as Corporal Tolman had been by our side since the first day of this living nightmare. and throughout the investigation process. It is every parent’s worst nightmare to lose a child in such a wasteful and horrifying way.

Megan never deserved such a fate as she was the most loving and easy to raise angel as a child. Ever since she was 3 years old, we could tell there was something different about Meghan. She would literally give the kids clothes off her back if they needed them, or lend them money for lunch, or let them get past her in line. This continued into her adult life. We have had countless of her girlfriends and friends who have told us all their lives that they adored our daughter and that she was such a huge influence in their lives, mainly because of her selflessness, devotion to a friend, and smiling good-natured nature. . All of her college friends shared very personal, special stories about our sweet daughter with us that warmed our hearts.

She was a hard worker, working not one but two part-time jobs in high school and college. She studied criminology at UNF and worked at Surfer for less than a year. Her job at Surfer was to help management and the police with security. Her job was to call an Uber for the kids so they wouldn’t try to drive away drunk. She signaled to the police at the door to report that the man may have had too much to drink. How painfully ironic and disastrous that she should be run over by a drunk driver.

Megan was a real athlete.

She was a quarterback for her high school football team and took a place in Hillsborough County and also played on the women’s varsity golf team.

Her Catholic school peers voted her most loving nature to play the part of the Virgin Mary in an 8th grade reenactment of the Passion of the Christ. She attended Nativity Catholic School for 11 years in Brandon, Florida.

UNF awarded us… her family… a bachelor’s degree in criminology posthumously in December after her death. She was only 3 classes short of graduating when she passed her exam.”

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