By DAMIEN FISHER, InDepthNH.org
A jury found Volodymyr Zhukovskyy not guilty of causing the deaths of seven motorcycle riders in the 2019 crash, but Superior Court Judge Martin Honigberg ruled he is still responsible for the deaths.
Zhukovskyy lost the appeal over his license suspension, imposed last year by a hearings officer, when Honigberg upheld the decision to hold him accountable for the deaths of seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club.
Zhukovskyy was charged with negligent homicide for the Route 2 crash in Randolph in the summer of 2019 after it was determined he had taken drugs several hours prior to the collision. But jurors acquitted him after his defense team introduced evidence that showed that while Zhukovskyy was not intoxicated when the crash happened, lead motorcycle rider Albert “Woody” Mazza was intoxicated.
But the hearings officer, and Honigberg, still found Zhukovskyy responsible for the crash due to his habitual drug use. According to the ruling, Zhukovskyy would have been feeling drug withdrawal symptoms at the time of the crash even if he wasn’t intoxicated.
“[T]he Hearings Examiner determined that although there was insufficient evidence that [Zhukovskyy] was impaired or intoxicated at the time of the crash, ‘there is a reasonable inference that [Zhukovskyy] was likely coming down from his drug use since it had been 12 hours since his last use and he reported that he was using 2 to 3 times a day during this period in order to feel good,’” Honigberg wrote.
Zhukovskyy admitted to police after the crash he had used cocaine and heroin laced with fentanyl before getting behind the wheel of his truck, and several hours before the fatal crash.
Honigberg’s ruling discounts the hearings officer’s reliance on a witness who mistakenly testified she saw Zhukovskyy driving erratically before the crash, stating that there were other witnesses of Zhukovskyy’s erratic driving.
“Notably, [the hearings officer] also relied on the accounts of four other eyewitnesses who observed [Zhukovskyy] driving much closer in time to the crash,” Honigberg wrote.
Honigberg also discounted the evidence that Mazza was intoxicated at the time of the crash.
“That Mr. Mazza may have contributed to the crash does not change the fact that the record also supports the conclusion that [Zhukovskyy’s] negligent driving caused or materially contributed to the crash,” Honigberg wrote.
Evidence introduced during the 2022 trial showed that Mazza had a blood alcohol of .135 at the time, well over the legal limit of .08, and Mazza reportedly first crossed the centerline, causing the catastrophic collision.
Zhukovskyy has a criminal history of drug abuse and impaired driving before the 2019 crash. His license should have been suspended in Massachusetts before the crash due to his prior violations, but his case fell through the cracks and he continued to drive.
Honigberg’s ruling means Zhukovskyy can get his license back next year. New Hampshire law sets a license suspension at a maximum of seven years, and the suspension was retroactively applied last year so that it began in 2019 when he was first arrested following the crash.
Killed in the crash were Mazza, 59, of Lee, Michael Ferazzi, 62, of Contoocook; Daniel Pereira, 58, of Riverside, Rhode Island; Jo-Ann and Edward Corr, both 58, of Lakeville, Mass.; Desma Oakes, 42, of Concord; and Aaron Perry, 45, of Farmington.
Zhukovskyy is Ukrainian, though he’s lived in the United States most of his life. He was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement immediately after his acquittal.
Zhukovskyy’s request for asylum was denied and on Feb. 3, 2023, an immigration judge ordered him deported, but deportations to Ukraine have been suspended because of the armed conflict there with Russia. Zhukovskyy was released from custody under an Order of Supervision issued in April 2023.