RADFORD -- The driver of the car that pulled into the path of a Radford University professor's bicycle, causing a crash that proved fatal, was found guilty Thursday of reckless driving, fined and lost his driver's license for six months.

Fess Green's bike struck the rear quarter panel on the passenger side of Ryan Brinkley Sherman's car about 6:15 p.m. April 23 at the entrance to Bisset Park.

Green, a well-known management professor and avid bicyclist, was riding his bike west on Main Street, past the park's entrance. Sherman was turning left into the park.

Sherman, 20, didn't testify at his hearing on the misdemeanor charge Thursday in Radford General District Court, but part of a video of a Radford police detective's interview with him was played.

In the interview with Lt. Andy Wilburn, Sherman said he and a friend had been to Wal-Mart and were on their way to his home in Hunter's Ridge. When he got to the park's entrance, he stopped in the left turn lane and motioned for a vehicle waiting at the park's exit to drive past him.

"I looked around, did not see anybody," he said. So he made the left turn.

He heard a loud thump on the passenger side near the car's trunk.

Radford Commonwealth's Attorney Chris Rehak said Green's head struck the pavement. The helmet he wore was cracked.

Green, 67, suffered spinal injuries. He was taken to Carilion New River Valley Medical Center and flown to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, where he died April 29.

In the interview, Sherman asked about Green's injuries. He suggested that Green might have been distracted and didn't see him turning into the park or was going too fast to stop.

"I just don't know" what happened," he told Wilburn. "I wish I could help you more."

Sherman was charged with reckless driving May 16.

His attorney, Michael Thorsen, argued that nothing about Sherman's actions was reckless.

"We don't have zig-zagging. We don't have cutting the corner trying to beat the bike," Thorsen said.

If Sherman had been driving in an overtly reckless manner, Rehak said, he might have been charged with manslaughter. He said Sherman's recklessness was his inattention.

"He said he looked and didn't see anything. This didn't just appear out of thin air," he said, motioning toward Green's red and blue bicycle, which had been propped up beside his desk. "He just didn't look."

General District Court Judge Glenwood Lookabill admitted that factually, it was a difficult case to decide.

But, he said, when Sherman stopped at the intersection and waved the car out of Bisset Park, he had an opportunity to look around.

"I think he looked quickly and not enough for it to even register on his mind" that the bike was coming, Lookabill said. "It's a tragic thing that happened."

Before Lookabill sentenced Sherman, Rehak gave him a copy of Sherman's driving record. It includes convictions for failing to obey a stop sign, driving too fast for road conditions and driving outside restrictions on his license. He asked the judge to send Sherman to jail.

Rehak also called Green's widow briefly to the witness stand.

Wearing wedding bands on a gold chain around her neck, Millie Green testified that "absolutely everything" about her life has changed since her husband of 47 years died.

Lookabill ordered Sherman to pay $1,500 of a $2,500 fine, suspended a six-month jail sentence and suspended his license for six months. At first the judge said he would suspend Sherman's license for a year, but Thorsen pointed out that six months is the maximum allowable, according to the code.

Lookabill also ordered Sherman to a year of supervised probation.

"I just think that he needs to spend some time reflecting on his life," Lookabill said.