Driver In Upstate NY Megabus Crash Pleads Not Guilty To 4 Deaths
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Criminal charges have been unsealed against the driver of a doubledecker Megabus that rammed a bridge in New York state last September, killing four people.
In a Syracuse, NY courtroom, bus driver John Tomaszewski pleaded not guilty to four counts of criminally negligent homicide. Those charges were returned by an Onondaga County (NY) grand jury, and unsealed today.
"What we believe he did, and what the law states on criminally negligent homicide," says Onondaga County senior assistant district attorney Chris Bednarski, "is that he failed to perceive a risk that a reasonable and prudent person should have perceived. And by failing to do so, he caused the deaths of the four victims."
Four people, including a Temple University student and a Voorhees, NJ woman, were killed when the Philadelphia-to-Toronto bus carrying 29 people slammed into a railroad bridge last September 11th (see related story). Police said Tomaszewski was distracted by his GPS.
Reported by Mike DeNardo, KYW Newsradio 1060
