Truck driver acquitted for 2019 crash that killed seven motorcycle riders in New Hampshire
A 26-year-old Ukrainian commercial truck driver was acquitted Tuesday on all charges for a 2019 crash on a rural New Hampshire highway that left seven ex-Marine motorcyclists dead.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy was acquitted of seven counts of manslaughter, seven counts of negligent homicide and one count of reckless conduct after prosecutors and the defense argued over which drivers were more intoxicated.
In closing arguments, public defender Jay Duguay accused Albert Mazza Jr., the president of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, of causing the crash because he was “driving his motorcycle while drunk, wasn’t looking where he was going, lost control of his bike and just slid into the oncoming truck.”
Assistant Attorney General Scott Chase countered that while Mazza may have been intoxicated, he was not too impaired to drive.
Volodymyr Zhukovskyy looks back at the gallery before closing statements started at his trial at Coos County Superior Court in Lancaster, N.H., Tuesday. (David Lane/)
“Not one person saw Mazza impaired or driving off the road,” Chase said during closing arguments. “But every person on that road saw the defendant all over it.”
Zhukovskyy was “impaired by several drugs,” including heroin, fentanyl and cocaine, at the time of the crash, according to a 2020 report from the National Transportation Safety Board.
Judge Peter H. Bornstein dismissed eight charges tied to Zhukovskyy’s drug and alcohol intake last week, saying “there is simply insufficient evidence from which a jury can find beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was impaired to a degree.”
Duguay, the defense lawyer, also pointed to an expert witness who said the crash would have happened even if Zhukovskyy had been perfectly within his lane because Mazza was already veering over the center boundary. He also accused the other bikers who survived of covering for Mazza with conflicting stories.
“People were covering the dead, trying to save the barely living, comforting the dying. This wasn’t story time,” Chase argued.
“They were up here talking about some of the most unimaginable chaos, trauma, death and carnage that we can even imagine three years later. They were talking about hell broke open.”
Zhukovskyy departs in the back of a Coos County Sheriff's Department pick-up truck. (David Lane/)
Over the three years since the deadly crash, criticism has fallen on the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, which failed to revoke Zhukovskyy’s license after Connecticut officials sent a notice about his drunken driving arrest.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu called the verdict an “absolute tragedy.”
“I share in the shock, outrage, and anger that so many have expressed in the three years since the seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club were taken from us,” he tweeted Tuesday.
“My heart goes out to their families, friends, and loved ones on this especially dark day.”
With News Wire Services
