Junming Zhu, the driver whose car left Memorial Drive before hitting John Corcoran, will serve a year in prison with another 18 months suspended.
Junming Zhu was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison as well as the loss of his driver’s license for 15 years for the death of cyclist John Corcoran Sept. 23, 2024. The decision was rendered Thursday in Cambridge District Court by Judge David E. Frank. Frank suspended the final 18 months of the sentence, meaning Zhu will serve one year and then be on probation.
The sentence was split despite pleas from Corcoran’s family to keep Zhu in prison for the full two and a half years, the maximum term permissible under the law. “After everything we’ve endured, I ask that this court please hold him fully accountable for taking my father’s life,” said Corcoran’s daughter, Christine, during her victim impact statement, calling it “the only fair sentence.”
Assistant District Attorney Caroline Evans requested that Zhu serve 18 months of the sentence, with the remaining year suspended, while Zhu’s attorney sought two years of probation without incarceration, asking for leniency because Zhu helps care for his six-year-old nephew, whose father works late hours in the food industry.
Zhu, 28, pleaded guilty to motor-vehicle homicide by negligent operation and was led from the courtroom in handcuffs. The hearing was conducted with the assistance of a Cantonese interpreter.
Corcoran, 62, an investment banker with area ties, was riding his e-bike home to Newton near Boston University’s DeWolfe Boathouse when Zhu’s Mercedes-Benz sport utility vehicle left Memorial Drive and struck him head-on on the sidewalk.
In their victim impact statements, Corcoran’s family members described the emotional harm they had suffered. “I lost my own moment of joy,” said his son, John “Jack” Corcoran, of crossing the stage at his Harvard graduation and seeing the empty chair where his father should have been.
Jack Corcoran’s mother, Barbara Bower, tearfully pointed to Zhu’s involvement in a crash in Melrose less than two months before he killed her husband. She emphasized to the court how Zhu continued driving partly on the sidewalk after striking her husband. Describing footage from the boathouse, she said the SUV pushed the remains of his bicycle along the road while runners and cyclists jumped out of its way.“He drove up the curb, didn’t swerve, didn’t brake. Bicyclists deserve to be safe. John wasn’t doing anything wrong,” she said.
The length of time needed to bring charges and then reach a sentence also weighed on the family. “We waited through delay after delay for justice to finally come,” said Corcoran’s brother, Philip Charles Corcoran. He marked the 752 days since his brother’s death and described a loss from which he might never fully recover.
About 15 cycling advocates attended the proceeding in support of the Corcoran family. Among them was Amy Flax, a retired school teacher, who credited the family’s persistence with bringing the case to this point. “I don’t feel it would have come to this,” Flax said, “if it were not for the dogged pursuit by the family.”
She said the hearing underscored both the family’s loss and the need for safe streets.“John Corcoran deserved to have safe streets. Instead he was killed by road violence,” Flax said. “The impact on his family and friends and on the cycling community is profound. His family spoke beautifully about what was lost.”
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