By Jeff Hamlin
Assistant News Director

A former UNC men’s tennis player will spend 12 to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to hit-and-run charges from a 2008 automobile accident.

Orange-Chatham County District Attorney Jim Woodall said 21-year-old Christopher Kearney also was found guilty of driving while impaired, driving after consuming alcohol while under 21, careless and reckless driving and possession of a fake ID.

Kearney, who was the 2007 ACC Freshman of the Year in men’s tennis, faced a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison. 

The charges stem from an accident in August 2008 when he was driving his SUV down Franklin Street from his apartment on Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard.

Woodall says Kearney was driving with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit.

Kearney, a native of Irvine, California, dropped out of UNC shortly after the arrest. The two women who were injured were also Carolina students and withdrew from school to recover from their injuries. They were both in Orange County Superior Court on Monday during the sentencing. Kearney apologized to both of them.