Truck Driver in Biker Crash Could Get Deported

Mass. license for Volodymyr Zhukovskyy ought to have been suspended after drunk driving arrest
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 26, 2019 9:45 AM CDT
Truck Driver in Biker Crash Shouldn't Have Been on Road
In this April 29, 2014, file photo, Erin Deveney speaks during a news conference in Boston.   (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds, File)

The 23-year-old truck driver charged with killing seven bikers in a horrific crash in New Hampshire shouldn't have been on the road. Ukrainian national and permanent resident Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, who police say plowed into the bikers with his Dodge 2500 pickup towing a flatbed trailer, was arrested for drunken driving in East Windsor, Conn., on May 11 after a man was seen revving a truck engine and acting erratically outside of a Walmart. Zhukovskyy of West Springfield, Mass., who has prior drug- and drunk-driving convictions, failed a sobriety test, which should've resulted in the automatic termination of the trucker's Massachusetts license, per the Boston Herald. But the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles didn't issue any suspension, resulting in the Tuesday resignation of RMV chief Erin Deveney.

A state transportation rep says the Connecticut DMV initially "failed to provide sufficient information" through a state-to-state messaging system for registries. The information was sent to the Massachusetts RMV on May 29, but it hadn't been reviewed at the time of the crash in Randolph, NH, almost a month later. Taking over for Deveney, Jamey Tesler, former COO of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, will head a review of the state-to-state data-sharing system in an effort to prevent similar oversights in the future. Meanwhile, Fox News reports Immigration and Customs Enforcement has filed a detainer on Zhukovskyy, meaning the driver for Massachusetts-based Westfield Transport could be deported. He pleaded not guilty to seven counts of negligent homicide on Tuesday. (More New Hampshire stories.)

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