Trucker acquitted in NH crash that killed 7 motorcyclists faces hearing to get his license back

CONCORD, N.H. — A commercial truck driver who was acquitted in 2022 of causing the deaths of seven motorcyclists in New Hampshire is scheduled for a hearing in Concord, New Hampshire on Wednesday in an attempt to get his driver’s license back.

Volodymyr Zhukovskyy. who came to the U.S. from Ukraine when he was 10, face an administrative hearing by the New Hampshire Department of Public Safety. An advisory about the hearing says that due to the complexity of the case, the agency has set aside three days to present evidence regarding the matter.

“I would like to request a hearing to get my license back,” Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 28, wrote to the New Hampshire Department of Safety in September, according to records obtained by The Associated Press under the state’s open records law.

Reached by phone on Tuesday, Zhukovskyy’s attorney Earle Wingate III said Zhukovskyy will testify via video on Wednesday. Wingate says Zhukovskyy was precluded from attending the hearing in person.

A jury found him not guilty of multiple manslaughter and negligent homicide counts stemming from a 2019 collision in Randolph, New Hampshire. The crash killed seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, an organization of Marine Corps veterans and their spouses in New England.

Prosecutors argued that Zhukovskyy — who had taken heroin, fentanyl, and cocaine on the day of the crash — repeatedly swerved back and forth before the collision and told police he caused it. But a judge dismissed eight impairment charges and his attorneys said the lead biker was drunk and not looking where he was going when he lost control of his motorcycle and slid in front of Zhukovskyy’s truck.

Zhukovskyy’s license was suspended automatically following his arrest, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained him after the verdict, citing previous convictions of drug possession, driving with a suspended license, furnishing false information, and larceny. Zhukovskyy was taken from a New Hampshire county jail to a federal detention facility in Pennsylvania.

Zhukovskyy was released from the Pennsylvania facility in April under an order of supervision, according to detention and immigration officials. That type of order allows immigrants to live and work in the U.S., so long as they meet regularly with ICE representatives and agree to follow specific conditions.

Zhukovskyy’s attorney in the driving license hearing would not disclose where Zhukovskyy is currently living.

A judge had ordered the deportation of Zhukovskyy, but his attorney in the deportation case has asked for asylum for his client.

The Boston Globe reported in February that it was not clear whether Zhukovskyy, would be sent to his native Ukraine during its ongoing war with Russia. The United States has paused repatriation flights to Ukraine and authorized Temporary Protected Status for qualified Ukrainians.

Zhukovskyy awaits the state administrative hearing in New Hampshire as he deals with an unresolved drunken driving charge in Connecticut, where he was arrested a month before the 2019 crash in New Hampshire.

At the time of the crash, Zhukovskyy’s commercial driving license, issued in Massachusetts, should have been revoked after his arrest in Connecticut.

Connecticut officials alerted the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles, but Zhukovskyy’s license wasn’t suspended due to a backlog of out-of-state notifications about driving offenses. In a review, federal investigators found similar backlog problems in Rhode Island,

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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