Charges tweaked for trucker accused of killing 7 motorcyclists
Accused of being drugged during crash
The truck driver accused of killing seven motorcyclists in 2019 in New Hampshire while he was reportedly high on drugs at the time of the crash has been hit with new charges.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 24, of West Springfield, pleaded not guilty Friday to refined charges of reckless conduct and seven counts of manslaughter. He also was charged with 14 counts of negligent homicide — seven charging him with causing the collision that led to the death of each victim, and seven alleging he was under the influence of a drug during the crash that led to their deaths.
Zhukovskyy tested positive for an unspecified drug that made him “incapable of safe operation” when his pickup truck and trailer crashed into Jarheads Motorcycle Club riders in Randolph, N.H., according to a report from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration.
He also “claimed to have been reaching for a beverage on the passenger side of the vehicle” just before he crossed over the double solid yellow lines, the report said, although it did not say whether the beverage was alcoholic.
His public defender, Jay Duguay, could not be reached for comment.
Zhukovskyy slammed into the biker pack on a two-lane highway on the afternoon of June 21, 2019, as the Jarheads were leaving a nearby motel.
At least three wrongful death suits and a federal lawsuit by the trucking company’s insurer have been filed since the fiery crash that killed members of the veterans’ bikers group.
A lawsuit by Mary Lou Welch, the common-law wife of Jarheads Motorcycle Club president Albert Mazza Jr., who was killed in the head-on collision, alleged Zhukovskyy had a troubled past of drug, alcohol and driving offenses.
He flipped a tractor-trailer in 2019 in Texas, was charged with drunken driving in Connecticut and faced charges in Iowa for “improper use of lanes,” according to court filings.
The case against Zhukovskyy, who was licensed in Massachusetts at the time of the crash despite his driving record, sparked a high-profile Registry of Motor Vehicles shakeup, which revealed serious lapses and led to the resignation of the then-registrar.
A third-party auditing company found an RMV employee did not make any changes to Zhukovskyy’s driving record before the collision after looking at his record for approximately seven seconds.
Zhukovskyy worked for Westfield Transport Inc., at the time of the New Hampshire crash. Two owners of the company — Dunyadar
“Damien” Gasanov, 36, and Dartanayan Gasanov, 35, both of West Springfield — were charged in federal court in Springfield in February with falsifying driving logs, instructing others to do so and making a false statement to investigators after the crash, federal prosecutors said.