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UPDATE: Truck driver charged in deaths of 7 motorcyclists

UPDATE: Truck driver charged in deaths of 7 motorcyclists



CONCORD, N.H. — The driver of a pickup truck in a fiery collision on a rural New Hampshire highway that killed seven motorcyclists was charged Monday with seven counts of negligent homicide, and records show he was stopped on suspicion of drunken driving last month and in 2013.

Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, 23, was arrested Monday morning at his home in West Springfield, Massachusetts, the New Hampshire attorney general's office said.

Zhukovskyy was questioned at the scene of Friday's crash and allowed to return to Massachusetts, the National Transportation Safety Board has said.

Zhukovskyy was handed over to New Hampshire authorities after a brief court appearance Monday in Springfield, Massachusetts. The 23-year-old looked down at his feet as he was led into the courtroom with his hands cuffed behind his back.

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Connecticut prosecutors say he was arrested May 11 in an East Windsor Walmart parking lot after failing a sobriety test. Officers had responded to a complaint about a man who was revving his truck engine and jumping up and down outside the vehicle.

Additionally, Zhukovskyy was arrested on a drunken driving charge in 2013 in Westfield, Massachusetts, state motor vehicle records show. He was placed on probation for one year and had his license suspended for 210 days, The Westfield News reported.

"He turned hard left into us and took out pretty much everyone behind me. ... Because the trailer was attached and it was such a big trailer, it was like a whip. It just cleaned us out."

A man who answered the phone at the home of Zhukovskyy's family and would identify himself only as his brother-in-law said Monday that the family is in shock and feeling the same pain as everyone else but couldn't say whether the driver was right or wrong.

Since the accident, the brother-in-law said, Zhukovskyy had remained in his room, not eaten and talked to no one.

Defense attorney Donald Frank called Friday's crash a "tragedy" but said it's important to let the criminal justice system play out.