LANCASTER — With the trial in the fatal Randolph motorcycle accident now pushed back until March 2021, the defense is renewing its request that defendant Volodomyr Zhukovskyy be released on personal recognizance bail.
Defense attorneys Steve Mirkin and Jay Duguay are requesting a bail hearing in open court. The two public defenders argue the additional delay in the trial date plus new findings by the state’s independent accident reconstruction firm must be factored into his bail status.
Zhukovskyy was driving a pickup truck with an attached flatbed trailer west on Route 2 in June 21, 2019, when the truck collided with a group of motorcycles headed to the American Legion in Gorham. Seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, a New England group that includes Marines and their spouses, were killed.
Zhukovskyy has been held at the Coos County Jail in West Stewartstown since his arrest in June 24, 2019 on seven counts of negligent homicide. He was later indicted on additional charges of negligent homicide-DUI, seven manslaughter, aggravated DUI, and reckless conduct. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The defense noted its March 27, motion for an evidentiary bail hearing was denied by the court without a hearing as was a follow-up motion for reconsideration. At that time, they said the case was scheduled for trial in November.
But at a scheduling conference last month, because of COVID-19 considerations, the trial has been “continued to a date no sooner than March 2021.” At that point, the defense said Zhukovskyy will have been held 21 months and argued there is no guarantee the trial won’t get pushed back even more because of the COVID protocols and the logistics of a lengthy trial.
The motion states that on Sept. 2, the state provided the defense with an addendum to the original accident reconstruction report prepared by The Crash Lab in Hampton. The additional findings, they argue, weaken the state’s case.
The report repeated their original finding that the initial contact between the truck driven by Zhukovskyy and the motorcycle driven by Club President Albert Mazza took place over the center line and not within the motorcycle’s travel lane as the state police reconstruction team found. The defense cited previous reports showing the impact of the crash deflated the truck’s left front tire, pulling it into the eastbound lane.
The Crash Lab has since calculated that Zhukovskyy would have had two to three seconds to see the lead motorcycle and react. They have determined that he did react by applying and locking the brakes prior to impact.
The state argues that given Zhukovskyy’s criminal history of drug use and driving, preventive detention is the only way to ensure the safety of the public and the defendant. In their earlier objection to bail, the state said Zhukovskyy was impaired at the time of the accident and was on bail on a charge of driving under the influence of drugs. The defense counters that the evidence is overwhelming that Zhukovskyy was not impaired at the time of the Randolph accident. They note that eight different law enforcement officers from various agencies had contact with the defendant after the accident and not one detected any impairment. On the other hand, the defense notes the autopsy on Mazza revealed his blood alcohol level of 0.135, well over the level limit of 0.08.
The defense is also requesting that part of police interrogation conducted after he was arrested on a fugitive warrant at his home in West Springfield, Mass., be suppressed. Approximately 50 minutes into the interrogation, Zhukovskyy told the officials he was not feeling well.
“I mean, like, right now, I don’t even want to answer anything. Like I’m just, like, out of it.”
The officers offered the defendant some coffee and a short break and then questioned him another 44 minutes. The defense argues the questioning should have stopped when Zhukovskyy stated that he didn’t want to answer any more questions.
A hearing on the motion to suppress is scheduled for Sept. 29, at 10 a.m. The hearing will be conducted over WebEx and Zhukovskyy will appear via video from jail.
The Jarheads killed in Randolph were Albert Mazza, 59, of Lee; Daniel Pereira, 58, of Riverside, R.I.; Michael Ferazzi, 62, of Contoocook; Aaron Perry, 45, of Lee; Desma Oakes, 42, of Concord; and Edward and Joan Corr, both 58 of Lakeview, Mass. Three others were injured.
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