Trucking Firm Won’t Face Criminal Charges in Crash that Killed 5 Georgia Students
A Georgia prosecutor says he’s dropped the criminal case against a trucking company charged in a deadly interstate crash last year that killed five nursing students.
Tom Durden is district attorney for southeast Georgia’s Atlantic Judicial Circuit. He said Wednesday that he agreed to waive an indictment charging Total Transportation of Mississippi with vehicular homicide and other crimes. Durden says the company in turn is spending $200,000 to establish a nonprofit organization that provides financial aid for nursing students. Durden called the outcome “a lot better than a fine” against the company.
Total Transportation was the employer of John Wayne Johnson, the driver of a tractor-trailer that slammed into stop-and-go traffic on Interstate 16 in April 2015. Five Georgia Southern University nursing students died.
Johnson still faces charges.
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