An Ohio man who confessed in a YouTube video to killing a man while driving drunk in 2013 has been released from prison several months early.
The father of Matthew Cordle and a jail official confirmed that Cordle had been released Wednesday.
Cordle, 28, was sentenced in October 2013 to six and a half years after pleading guilty to one count of aggravated vehicular homicide and one count of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs in the June 22 crash that killed Vincent Canzani, 61, on a Columbus-area highway.
A judge on Wednesday granted Cordle's request to be released from jail five months before the end of his term, saying she was convinced Cordle is remorseful and had been rehabilitated, NBC affiliate WCMH of Columbus reported.
On Sept. 3, 2013, Cordle posted a three-and-a-half-minute YouTube video titled "I killed a man" in which he confessed to driving the wrong way while drunk and killing Canzani. In the video, Cordle also implored people not to drink and drive. The video has been watched more than 3 million times.
Canzani’s daughter, Angela Canzani Riggs, at Wednesday's hearing argued against early release.
"Letting him out six months early sends him a message that he can continue to do what he wants, and it doesn't matter who it affects," she said, according to WCMH. In 2013, she said she believed the video was an attempt to get a lighter sentence and noted it came months after the crash.
Cordle's attorney, George Breitmayer III, told NBC News that Cordle has a job as a drug and alcohol counselor lined up and that he earned an associate's degree while in prison.
Cordle said at the hearing Wednesday that he has tried to fulfill his pledge to be a better person. "I believe I've done that by developing maturity and responsibility that I didn’t have before,” he said, according to WCMH.
In the 2013 YouTube video, Cordle said he had been out with friends and drinking heavily before striking Canzani's Jeep, killing the Navy veteran.
An indictment says his blood-alcohol level was 0.19, more than twice the legal limit. His driver's license has been suspended for life.
Cordle had faced up to 8 1/2 years in the deadly crash.
Around the time that Cordle was sentenced, Canzani's ex-wife, Cheryl Canzani Oates, in a letter to the judge said the victim would not have wanted him to be sentenced to the maximum.
"Vince would not want to see two lives lost in this terrible situation due to Matthew drinking and driving," she wrote in the letter.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in November 2018 that there were 10,874 people killed in alcohol-impaired-driving crashes in 2017, which accounted for 29 percent of all motor vehicle traffic fatalities in the United States that year.
