Truck owner pleads guilty to charges related to crash that killed 7 motorcyclists

The owner of a now-defunct trucking company agreed to plead guilty Tuesday to federal charges related to a fatal crash in New Hampshire that killed seven motorcyclists.

Dunyadar Gasanov, 39, pleaded guilty in Springfield, Massachusetts, to three counts of making false statements to federal investigators. The trucking company he owned, Westfield Transport, Inc., hired Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, a commercial truck driver who was involved in the 2019 crash that killed seven motorcyclists in northern New Hampshire.

Gasanov was accused of falsifying driver logs to avoid federal road safety regulations, including exceeding limits on the hours a driver can operate. He also instructed at least one employee to falsify records by disabling recording devices in order to exceed permitted driving hours and lied about it to federal investigators. He also claimed to federal investigators that he met Zhukovskii the day he was hired, when in fact he had known him for years and knew that Zhukovskii had been charged with drunken driving.

“Keeping communities safe takes all forms. In this case, it is about ensuring that commercial vehicle operators follow all necessary safety procedures and regulations,” Acting United States Attorney Joshua Levy said in a statement. “We will not forget the lives of June 2019 that relate to this conviction. This defendant violated those laws that are critical to public safety and put everyone on the road at risk, with tragic consequences here.”

Gasanov’s attorney, Peter Slepchuk, had no comment when reached about the plea agreement.

Gasanov, who is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 21, faces five years in prison, one year of supervised release and a $10,000 fine on each charge. His co-defendant, Dartanayan Gasanov, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. Both were indicted in 2021.

The verdict of the jury

A 2022 jury acquitted Volodymyr Jukovskyy of multiple counts of manslaughter and negligent homicide stemming from the June 21, 2019, crash in Randolph that killed seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, an organization of Navy veterans and their New England husbands.

Jukovsky’s Massachusetts license was automatically suspended in New Hampshire after his arrest in the crash, but he tried to reinstate it earlier this year. A Department of Safety administrative law judge upheld the suspension in May and, after a hearing last month, issued an order Wednesday to extend it until June 2026, seven years after the accident.

Seven years is the maximum allowed by law. The state argued the clock should start this year, meaning the license would remain suspended until 2031.

During the hearing in June, family and friends of the deceased and survivors of the accident begged the judge to impose the maximum suspension.

“Someone who has caused such incredible and horrific pain to so many people has the audacity to say, ‘I want my privilege back,'” Jarheads member David Bark told the hearing. “It is not a constitutional right to drive a car, to drive a motor vehicle on a public highway. This is a privilege.”

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