Charges Filed in Beltway Fatality
Trucker's License Was Suspended
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 21, 2007; Page B01
A truck driver with a suspended license was charged yesterday with reckless driving in connection with a multiple-vehicle crash in Prince George's County late Monday that killed a Riverdale area man, injured two other people and closed a section of the Capital Beltway for six hours, Maryland State Police said.
Police said that Roger Carlett Scofield Jr., 54, of Harrington, Del., was driving a tractor-trailer on a suspended license and that he is suspected of doctoring his logbook to make it appear that he had been driving for fewer hours than he had been.
  The front of a tractor-trailer had to be lifted off a crushed car after a four-vehicle crash that killed a man late Monday on the Capital Beltway in Prince George's. (By Mark E. Brady -- Prince George's Fire/ems Department Via Associated Press) |
"We do what we can to enforce the laws dealing with fatigued commercial drivers, but it appears that this individual tried to circumvent those laws by falsifying his logbook to cover up the number of hours he'd been driving, and it had a fatal and tragic result," said 1st Sgt. Russell Newell, a state police spokesman.
Scofield pleaded guilty to reckless driving and other violations in Maryland nearly two years ago, court records show. The penalty could not be immediately determined.
Capt. N.W. Dofflemyer, commercial enforcement division commander for the state police, said federal authorities probably will check whether the company that employed Scofield had complied with requirements to review drivers' records regularly.
Scofield was charged yesterday with negligent driving, failure to control speed to avoid a collision and driving with a suspended out-of-state license. He was released with a summons to appear in court. Neither he nor the company that owns the truck, New Jersey-based B.K. Trucking, could be reached yesterday for comment.
Monday's accident occurred about 11 p.m. on the outer loop of the Beltway north of Route 1. Police said the tractor-trailer rear-ended a 1995 Honda Accord, pushing it into a wall, and then hit two other cars: a 1994 Acura Integra that was moving slowly with its hazard lights on because of mechanical difficulties and a 1996 Nissan Altima that was ahead of the Acura.
The driver of the Nissan, Jose Marcos Portillo Villalta, 33, of the 5800 block of Eastpine Drive, was pinned beneath the front of the tractor-trailer. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Villalta's sister-in-law, Blanca Ronero, said Villalta was helping a friend, Francisco Nelson Saravia, 29, who was driving the Acura to an auto shop for repairs. Villalta, a construction worker, had agreed to give Saravia a ride home, she said.
"He never imagined it would end like this. He loved his life," said Ronero, 37.
Saravia, of Arlington, was treated for minor injuries by paramedics at the scene and then taken to a hospital, authorities said.
The driver of the Honda, Marco Saint Aylmer Hall, 32, of Bowie, was flown by helicopter to a hospital in Baltimore, where he was being treated yesterday for life-threatening injuries, authorities said.
