Pvt. Gage Kaiser, a 20-year-old soldier assigned to Fort Riley, Kan., was sentenced Monday, Feb. 10, 2025, to 3½ years in prison for driving under the influence and killing an off-duty police officer. (Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office )
A Fort Riley soldier was sentenced to 3½ years in prison after pleading guilty to driving drunk and killing an off-duty police officer on a rural Kansas road last year.
Pvt. Gage Kaiser, 20, was driving a 2013 GMC pickup truck westbound on U.S. Highway 81 in the town of Peck at about 4:19 a.m. March 16, according to court records. He ran a stop sign while speeding and hit a 2014 Audi sedan driven by Scott Hollingsworth, who was driving home from work with the Clearwater Police Department.
Hollingsworth’s car overturned, and he died.
Kaiser pleaded guilty Dec. 17 to involuntary manslaughter while driving under the influence and was sentenced Monday by Judge Chris Magana in Sedgwick County.
The soldier had a friend in the car with him who was injured, according to court records. The judge ordered Kaiser to pay the friend nearly $3,000 in restitution.
The area where the accident occurred is south of Wichita and largely rural except for a nearby casino. Kaiser was leaving the town of Mulvane and traveling to a friend’s house, according to police. Fort Riley is about 120 miles north of Wichita.
Hollingsworth, 26, was driving back home to the town of Wellington. He had worked for the department for about a year and is survived by his wife and daughter, according to Clearwater police.
His widow filed a civil lawsuit against Kaiser in October and later that month they reached a settlement of $100,000, according to court documents.
Kaiser, an infantryman, enlisted in the Army in July 2023 from Arkansas City, Kan., and had been assigned to Fort Riley since last February, according to the base. He is in the process of separating from the Army, according to the 1st Infantry Division.
The soldier was in Sedgwick County Jail on Wednesday, according to online records.
Fort Riley has about 15,000 active-duty soldiers assigned to the base. Its largest unit is the 1st Infantry Division.
