FEBRUARY 26, 2015
DUPAGE COUNTY, ILLINOIS:
A DuPage County judge found a trucker guilty on felony
charges and misdemeanor traffic offenses in the January 2014 fatal I-88 crash
that caused the death of an Illinois tollway employee and critically injured a
state trooper.
Renato Velasquez, 46, was found guilty of one felony count
of operating a commercial truck in a fatigued state, and two felony counts of
failure to comply with hours of service requirements. The Hanover Park man was
also found guilty on misdemeanor traffic charges, including failure to reduce
speed to avoid an accident and failure to yield to an emergency vehicle.
Felony charges of falsifying records were dismissed because
prosecutors “could not prove that the forgeries were committed in Illinois,”
Judge Kleeman said.
The convictions came Thursday afternoon after a two-day
bench trial at the DuPage County Courthouse in Wheaton.
On Jan. 27, 2014, tollway employee Vincent Petrella
positioned his help truck behind a disabled semi-trailer in the eastbound lane
of I-88 near Eola Road in Aurora. Trooper Douglas Balder had arrived earlier
and had also positioned his squad car behind Petrella’s vehicle. Prosecutors
said both vehicles had activated their emergency lights, and a tow truck that
had arrived on the scene to help remove the disabled semi-trailer from the
traffic lane had activated its lights.
Petrella had placed flares around the scene and was sitting
inside his help truck with the driver of the disabled semi. Balder had also
returned to his squad car when at 9:20 p.m. Velasquez’s 2004 Freightliner
semi-trailer slammed into Balder’s squad car and Petrella’s truck, causing both
vehicles to burst into flames. Petrella died at the scene.
During the two-day bench trial, prosecutors presented
testimony from a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration investigator, and
an FBI
special agent specializing in cellular phone tracking.
Also
played were portions of a videotaped interview, in which Velasquez
admitting to Illinois State Police investigators that he didn’t remember
anything between Farnsworth Road and Eola Road until the moment of the crash.
Prosecutors alleged Velasquez had fallen asleep behind the wheel of his rig
because he had been driving for 20 hours or more in violation of federal
transport rules.
During his videotaped interrogation, the trucker admitted:
“Maybe I was sleepy.”
Velasquez also told the troopers in the video that he did
not see the emergency lights of the trooper’s squad car and the tollway vehicle
that had stopped to assist the disabled semi.
The
Hanover Park trucker had started out the evening of Jan. 26, 2014 for Elkhorn,
NE, with a load of steel cable. He had turned around the next morning on
Jan. 27, 2014 and picked up another load of steel cable in Cedar Rapids, IA,
before heading back to the Chicago area.
During that period Velasquez had what amounted to about
fours of sleep in a 24-hour period.
“It’s pretty conclusive that the defendant was driving
straight through due the number of phone conversations in the early morning
hours [of Jan. 27, 2014],” the judge said before rendering his verdict. “It’s a
reasonable inference that he was awake at that time in Iowa and Nebraska.”
DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said that
Velasquez followed the federal commercial carrier rules by getting the proper
amount of rest the crash never would have happened.
“Simply put, Mr. Velasquez’s decision to get behind the
wheel of his truck while fatigued cost Vincent Petrella his life and severely
injured Trooper Balder,” Berlin said in a written statement. “Had Mr. Velasquez
gotten the proper amount of rest before driving, Mr. Petrella would be alive
today and Trooper Balder would not be looking at a life of pain and suffering.”
Velasquez was allowed to remain out on bond until his
pre-sentencing hearing on March 23. He faces up a maximum jail sentence of three
years in the Illinois Department of Corrections or probation.
//-----------------------------------------------//
TRUCKER WHO STRUCK
STATE TROOPER IN FIERY CRASH ADMITS: 'MAYBE I GOT SLEEPY'. SECOND DAY OF TRUCKER TRIAL INCLUDES
INTERROGATION VIDEO AND FBI ANALYSIS OF CELL TOWER RECORDS.
FEBRUARY 26, 2015
DUPAGE COUNTY, ILLINOIS
An FBI special agent specializing in cellular analysis
testified Wednesday that cell phone activity and toll records were inconsistent
with logbook records kept by a Hanover Park trucker accused of breaking federal
transport rules that caused a fiery crash on a frigid cold night in January
2014.
DuPage County prosecutors claim that Renato Velasquez had
been driving and working 36 hours with only four hours of rest when his truck
triggered a crash that killed an Illinois tollway worker and critically injured
a state trooper.
Prosecutor Joe Ruggiero has alleged that Velasquez
demonstrated a pattern of falsifying his logbook in the four days leading up to
the crash that killed toll way worker Vincent Petrella and severely injured
trooper Douglas Balder, who had stopped to help a disabled semi-trailer on I-88
near Eola Road in Aurora on Jan. 27, 2014.
FBI special agent Joseph Raschke explained how he analyzed
cellular tower pings and I-Pass records to show that Velasquez’s movements
didn’t jive with the times and locations in his logbook where the trucker
indicated he had been working or off-duty.
According to entries in the trucker’s logbook, prosecutors
alleged Velasquez said he left Hanover Park Sunday afternoon Jan. 26, 2014 to
deliver a load of steel cable to Elkhorn, NE, arriving there in the evening.
His logbook indicated that he was “off duty” from 9 p.m. until 9 a.m., per
federal rules limiting the number of hours that truckers can be on the job.
Raschke testified that cellular tower analysis and I-Pass records
showed that Velasquez didn’t set out for Nebraska until Sunday evening.
“I-Pass records and cellular tower activity indicate
westbound travel at 6:45 p.m. [Sunday Jan. 26, 2014],” the special agent said.
“From 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. [Monday, Jan. 27, 2014] there is cellular phone
activity in Elkhorn, NE.”
Illinois State Trooper and investigator Adam Miklaszewski
also testified how he and another trooper interviewed Velasquez hours after the
crash at Mercy Hospital in Aurora. Miklaszewski stated Velasquez appeared alert
and had waived off using a Spanish translator.
Playing select video clips of four hours of interviews and
interrogation of the trucker, Velasquez stated that he didn’t remember anything
between Farnsworth and Eola Roads on I-88 until the moment of impact at 9:20
p.m. Jan. 27, 2014, when his rig plowed into the back of Balder’s and
Petrella’s vehicles, causing all three to burst into flames.
Asked if he saw emergency lights ahead, Velasquez stated on
the video that he didn’t see anything except for “light posts.”
“I don’t remember seeing police lights,” the Hanover Park
man said.
When Velasquez was released from the hospital after 2 a.m.
Jan. 28, 2014, he was then brought to the Illinois State Police district office
in Downers Grove where the interrogation continued the next morning.
Insisting that he hadn’t seen the police emergency lights on
Balder’s squad car or Petrella’s “help truck” until the last second when he
tried to swerve around both vehicles, Miklaszewski tells Velasquez that he “you
forgot to tell us something.”
“There are no overhead lights on the straight road,”
Miklaszewski says on the video. “You were either asleep or doing something or
you’re lying to me. You don’t look like a man who’s a liar but I can see you
are holding back.”
After several hours of interrogation Velasquez later admits
that “maybe I got sleepy, all I remember is changing the lane.” He also admits
to the troopers that he falsified his logbook “because that’s how you make
money,” Miklaszewski testified.
Miklaszewski also testified that Velasquez took video with
his cell phone of another semi-trailer crash at the Illinois-Iowa border around
midnight Jan. 26, 2014, when the trucker was supposedly resting and sleeping in
Elkhorn, NE, according to his logbook.
Velasquez’s attorney Steve Goldman suggested on cross
examination that the troopers’ interrogation techniques when his client was
tired and traumatized from the accident elicited false answers that he had
fallen asleep or had faked logbook entries.
At the end of the second day of testimony, Goldman filed a
motion to dismiss both charges against his client, stating that prosecutors had
failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Velasquez had committed a crime
in Illinois.
Judge Robert Kleeman said he would rule dismissing both
counts on Thursday afternoon, but admonished attorneys on both sides to be
prepared to give closing arguments.
//----------------------------------------------------------//
DRIVER CHARGED IN
I-88 CRASH THAT KILLED TOLLWAY WORKER
January 27, 2014
AURORA, Ill. (CBS)
An Illinois Tollway maintenance worker
was killed, and an Illinois State Police trooper was injured when a
semi-tractor trailer crashed into their vehicles on the Reagan Memorial Tollway
near Aurora.
Charges have been filed against the semi-truck driver whose
rig struck and killed a Tollway worker and injured an Illinois state trooper on
I-88 near Aurora.
Prosecutors say trucker Renato Velasquez, of Hanover Park,
was overly fatigued, and had been at the wheel too long — in violation of
federal law.
In addition, state police say, Velasquez is charged with
falsifying his log book to make it appear he was behind the wheel legally.
Federal law limits truckers to 11 consecutive hours behind the wheel or 11
hours in a 14-hour period.
He faces a laundry list of charges that also includes
failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident and failure to yield to a
stationary emergency vehicle.
State Police Director Hiram Grau said the condition of the
injured trooper, Douglas Balder, has been upgraded to serious and that he is
expected to recover.
Balder and tollway worker Vincent Petrella were trying to
assist a disabled motorist when Velasquez’s rig hit them.
CBS 2’s Mike Puccinelli reports, around 9:45 p.m. Monday,
Illinois State Trooper Douglas Balder was helping Tollway worker Vincent
Petrella work to remove a stalled semi from the tollway, after the truck broke
down near Eola Road, when another semi slammed into the vehicles, and they
burst into flames. That 18-wheeler partly ran over Balder’s squad car, causing
an explosive chain-reaction crash.
“The impact of the crash caused all vehicles to become
engulfed in flames,” Illinois State Police Lt. Bob Meeder said.
Petrella, 39, was pronounced dead at the scene.
“We’re extremely thankful that he’s able to survive. If you
see the condition of the vehicle, it’s a miracle,” said State Police Director
Hiram Grau.
Grau said the wreck likely could have been avoided if the
truck driver who plowed into the stopped vehicles had followed the law, and
pulled over to the left lane when he spotted the flashing lights from the
trooper’s vehicle.
“If you see those flashing lights, you see emergency
workers, you get as far away from them as you possibly can,” he said.
Petrella is survived by a wife and two children. He had been
working for the Illinois Toll Highway Authority since 2001. He started as a
toll collector, and most recently was working as an operator laborer since
2005.
Tollway officials said Petrella was a family man committed
to doing his best every day to serve tollway customers.
It was the second time in the past year that an Illinois
state trooper’s vehicle was struck by a semi while stopped on an Illinois
tollway.
In March 2013, Trooper James Sauter was killed when a truck
hit his squad car while he was stopped on the shoulder of Interstate 294 near
Willow Road. A trucker from Wisconsin was charged with felony violations of
truck driver regulations, after allegedly falling asleep at the wheel