Jury deliberations in the New Hampshire trial of a truck driver billed with killing 7 motorcyclists commenced Tuesday immediately after closing statements elevated questions about who was extra "all around the place": the trucker accused of swerving again and forth throughout the highway or the eyewitnesses accused of contradicting each and every other.

Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 26, of West Springfield, Massachusetts, faces negligent homicide, manslaughter and reckless carry out rates in connection with the June 21, 2019, crash that killed 7 members of a Maritime motorcycle club.

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Prosecutors have argued that Zhukovskyy, who experienced taken heroin, fentanyl and cocaine that working day, frequently swerved again and forth right before the head-on crash and instructed police he triggered it. But a judge dismissed 8 costs similar to irrespective of whether he was impaired, and his lawyers blame the guide biker, Albert "Woody" Mazza, who was among those people killed.

"He was drunk, he was not on the lookout exactly where he was likely, he shed management of his motorcycle and slid in entrance of Vlad Zhukovskyy’s truck. Al Mazza caused this accident. Vlad Zhukovskyy is not guilty," defense lawyer Jay Duguay said in closing statements.

"There is no doubt that this accident was a tragedy," Duguay said. "But we are not below to choose regardless of whether or not this was a tragedy."

Duguay accused prosecutors of ignoring that their personal incident reconstruction device contradicted their theory that Zhukovskyy crossed into the oncoming lane. An skilled employed by the protection, in the meantime, testified that the crash took place on the centre line of the highway and would have transpired even if the truck was in the middle of its lane due to the fact Mazza’s motorbike was heading in that course.

Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, found right here entering a courtroom at Coos County Superior Court, in Lancaster, N.H., on July 25, 2022, has pleaded not responsible to various counts of negligent murder, manslaughter, reckless carry out, and driving below the impact in the crash. (WHD Picture/Steven Senne, Pool)

"From the starting of this investigation, the condition experienced produced up their thoughts about what had took place, proof be damned," mentioned Duguay, who also highlighted inconsistencies among witness accounts or when witnesses contradicted them selves.

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"All those witnesses have been all more than the position about what they recalled and what they claimed to have noticed," he stated.

In individual, Duguay recommended that associates of the Jarheads Motorbike Club "shaded" their accounts to shield Mazza and the club. Prosecutor Scott Chase acknowledged some inconsistencies, but asked jurors to try to remember the conditions.

"Persons ended up masking the useless, trying to preserve the hardly dwelling, comforting the dying. This wasn’t tale time," he reported. "They have been up right here speaking about some of the most unimaginable chaos, trauma, loss of life and carnage that we can even think about a few many years afterwards. They ended up conversing about hell broke open up."

Witnesses were being consistent, he argued, in describing the truck as weaving back again and forth in advance of the crash. That habits ongoing "till he killed people today," Chase explained.

"That’s what stopped him. It’s not that he made some liable choice to get started shelling out focus or do the appropriate detail," he said. "The only point that stopped him was an embankment following he tore by a group of bikes."

Chase known as the try to blame Mazza a "fanciful tale" and "frivolous distraction," though reminding jurors of that Zhukovskyy, who did not testify at trial, explained to investigators "Naturally, I prompted the crash."

"He was crystal obvious from the extremely beginning that he triggered this crash," Chase mentioned. "That is what he reported, simply because that is what happened."

The motorcyclists who died were from New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island and ranged in age from 42 to 62. They were component of a much larger group that experienced just still left a motel alongside U.S. Route 2 in Randolph.

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Killed had been Mazza, of Lee, New Hampshire Edward and Jo-Ann Corr, a pair from Lakeville, Massachusetts Michael Ferazzi, of Contoocook, New Hampshire Desma Oakes, of Harmony, New Hampshire Daniel Pereira, of Riverside, Rhode Island and Aaron Perry, of Farmington, New Hampshire.