Jury Deciding Fate Of Driver Charged In Fatal Bronx Bus Crash
To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.
Then come back here and refresh the page.
A jury is deciding the fate of a driver charged in a deadly bus accident in the Bronx.
Ophadell Williams faces 54 criminal counts, including manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges.
15 passengers were killed, and others severely injured, when Williams' bus slammed into a guardrail in March 2011.
Prosecutors argue he was driving on a suspended license and got little sleep the night before.
"His lack of sleep, the evidence shows, caused him to be so severely sleep deprived on the morning of March 12 that he wasn't able to control the bus and caused the crash that killed these 15 people," said Gary Weil, a Bronx assistant district attorney.
"He was cut off by this huge tractor trailer and forced to suddenly swerve, ironically, to avoid a collision, and instead, it resulted in this tragic accident," said Pat Bruno, an attorney for Williams.
Williams faces a maximum of 15 years in prison on all counts.