During the trial of Volodymyr Zhukovskyy on Friday in Coos County Superior Court, Assistant Attorney General Scott Chase cross examines Trooper Brandon Girardi, who was testifying as a defense witness, about a video Girardi shot on June 23, 2019, two days after a crash that killed seven motorcyclists in Randolph.
During the trial of Volodymyr Zhukovskyy on Friday in Coos County Superior Court, Assistant Attorney General Scott Chase cross examines Trooper Brandon Girardi, who was testifying as a defense witness, about a video Girardi shot on June 23, 2019, two days after a crash that killed seven motorcyclists in Randolph.
LANCASTER — A member of the New Hampshire State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Unit testified Friday that he misidentified a tire mark at the scene of the 2019 crash on Route 2 in Randolph that killed seven motorcyclists.
Before the error was detected, brought to his attention and corrected, Trooper Daniel Quartulli said he had filed a report which incorrectly implied that Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, who was westbound in a Dodge Ram 2500 pickup and towing an empty car carrier, crossed into an eastbound group of members and supporters of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club.
A subsequent review of the report by a third party determined that the incident was what co-defense counsel Jay Duguay called — and Quartulli agreed — “a head-on collision” between Zhukovskyy’s truck and a motorcycle operated by Albert “Woody” Mazza Jr. of Lee.
Quartulli said he first believed a tire mark found near the double-yellow lines was evidence of Mazza’s bike sliding into an oncoming Zhukovskyy but later learned it was a mark from a vehicle tire, which meant the initial impact was not well within the eastbound lane as his report stated.
When pressed by Duguay, Quartulli replied, “I was rushing to put out work product,” that was to be part of the larger CAR Unit report. “I made a mistake,” he said.
Earlier, Quartulli testified that he had been assigned to “map the scene” using digital points that could be turned into “a scale diagram.”
He said the corrected identification of what he labeled in his report as simply a “tire mark” put Zhukovskyy’s truck “further toward the center of the line than I would have initially believed.”
When Duguay read part of Quartulli’s deposition, the trooper conceded that at the time he wrote the report, “I had already drawn my conclusion” of what had happened, in part based on the physical evidence he misinterpreted.
“You had A plus B but you couldn’t reach conclusion C,” Duguay told Quartulli, who countered that his job was to record and report data, not draw conclusions.
Trooper Brandon Girardi, who also responded to the crash scene on June 21, 2019 in support of the CAR Unit, agreed with Duguay on Friday that the first CAR report “mischaracterized” where the vehicles were.
Girardi said he did some calculations and believed that even if Mazza and Zhukovskyy saw each other three seconds before the impact, they would not have had time to recognize the threat and respond to it.
“In my opinion, it (the crash) was largely unavoidable,” said Girardi, who, when he ventured that the possible impairment of both drivers may have reduced their response times even further, was cut off by Judge Peter Bornstein, who instructed jurors to disregard testimony about either Mazza or Zhukovskyy being impaired.
Since the trial began July 26, the defense has said that Mazza, not their client, was responsible for the crash because Mazza was legally drunk and had strayed into the left front wheel of Zhukovskyy’s truck. When that tire exploded, the defense said, Zhukovskyy lost control of the pickup and trailer and crossed into the eastbound lane.
The state, however, has said Zhukovskyy was under the influence of heroin/fentanyl and cocaine at the time of the crash, having consumed the drugs at his West Springfield, Mass., residence around 8 a.m. on the day of the crash, before he drove to Albany, N.Y., to pick up a Toyota SUV that he later dropped off at the Berlin City Auto Group dealerships in Gorham.
Zhukovskyy was headed home when he encountered the Jarheads. In his first post-crash interview with investigators, he took responsibility for the crash because he said he had briefly swerved into the eastbound lane when he took his eyes off the road to retrieve a soda from a cup carrier.
In a subsequent interview, Zhukovskyy admitted to using heroin and cocaine on the day of the crash, but repeatedly told investigators he was not impaired when the crash happened, some 10 1/2 hours later.
On Wednesday, after the state finished presenting its case in Coos County Superior Court, the defense made a motion to dismiss all charges against Zhukovskyy, but Bornstein dismissed only the eight that alleged impairment, saying the state had not proven impairment.
Zhukovskyy still faces seven counts each of negligent homicide and of manslaughter-reckless operation and a charge of reckless conduct with a deadly weapon.
Following Friday’s testimony by Quartulli and Girardi, Bornstein held a hearing on instructions that he may eventually give to the jurors about how to proceed with their deliberations.
A full final day of defense testimony is expected on Aug. 9, with closing arguments to follow soon thereafter, Bornstein said.
Steve Mirkin, also a public defender representing Zhukovskyy, asked Bornstein to beef up his jury instructions in light of the fact that the state, for the better part of its case, has focused on drugs and Zhukovskyy’s impairment as the cause of the crash.
“It’s necessary to impress upon the jury that they are not to consider that evidence,” Mirkin said.
