Trucker Who Struck State Trooper in Fiery Crash Admits: 'Maybe I Got Sleepy'

Caption: Three men whose paths tragically crossed on Jan. 27, 2014: (top) injured Illinois State Trooper Douglas Balder; (bottom, left to right), trucker Renato Velasquez, on trial for breaking federal transport rules that caused fatal crash; Vincent Petrella, the tollway worker killed in fiery crash.

An FBI special agent specializing in cellular analysis testified Wednesday that cell phone activity and toll records were inconsistent with logbook records kept by a Hanover Park trucker accused of breaking federal transport rules that caused a fiery crash on a frigid cold night in January 2014.

DuPage County prosecutors claim that Renato Velasquez had been driving and working 36 hours with only four hours of rest when his truck triggered a crash that killed an Illinois tollway worker and critically injured a state trooper.

Prosecutor Joe Ruggiero has alleged that Velasquez demonstrated a pattern of falsifying his logbook in the four days leading up to the crash that killed toll way worker Vincent Petrella and severely injured trooper Douglas Balder, who had stopped to help a disabled semi-trailer on I-88 near Eola Road in Aurora on Jan. 27, 2014.

FBI special agent Joseph Raschke explained how he analyzed cellular tower pings and I-Pass records to show that Velasquez’s movements didn’t jive with the times and locations in his logbook where the trucker indicated he had been working or off-duty.

According to entries in the trucker’s logbook, prosecutors alleged Velasquez said he left Hanover Park Sunday afternoon Jan. 26, 2014 to deliver a load of steel cable to Elkhorn, NE, arriving there in the evening. His logbook indicated that he was “off duty” from 9 p.m. until 9 a.m., per federal rules limiting the number of hours that truckers can be on the job.

Raschke testified that cellular tower analysis and I-Pass records showed that Velasquez didn’t set out for Nebraska until Sunday evening.

“I-Pass records and cellular tower activity indicate westbound travel at 6:45 p.m. [Sunday Jan. 26, 2014],” the special agent said. “From 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. [Monday, Jan. 27, 2014] there is cellular phone activity in Elkhorn, NE.”

Illinois State Trooper and investigator Adam Miklaszewski also testified how he and another trooper interviewed Velasquez hours after the crash at Mercy Hospital in Aurora. Miklaszewski stated Velasquez appeared alert and had waived off using a Spanish translator.

Playing select video clips of four hours of interviews and interrogation of the trucker, Velasquez stated that he didn’t remember anything between Farnsworth and Eola Roads on I-88 until the moment of impact at 9:20 p.m. Jan. 27, 2014, when his rig plowed into the back of Balder’s and Petrella’s vehicles, causing all three to burst into flames.

Asked if he saw emergency lights ahead, Velasquez stated on the video that he didn’t see anything except for “light posts.”

“I don’t remember seeing police lights,” the Hanover Park man said.

When Velasquez was released from the hospital after 2 a.m. Jan. 28, 2014, he was then brought to the Illinois State Police district office in Downers Grove where the interrogation continued the next morning.

Insisting that he hadn’t seen the police emergency lights on Balder’s squad car or Petrella’s “help truck” until the last second when he tried to swerve around both vehicles, Miklaszewski tells Velasquez that he “you forgot to tell us something.”

“There are no overhead lights on the straight road,” Miklaszewski says on the video. “You were either asleep or doing something or you’re lying to me. You don’t look like a man who’s a liar but I can see you are holding back.”

After several hours of interrogation Velasquez later admits that “maybe I got sleepy, all I remember is changing the lane.” He also admits to the troopers that he falsified his logbook “because that’s how you make money,” Miklaszewski testified.

Miklaszewski also testified that Velasquez took video with his cell phone of another semi-trailer crash at the Illinois-Iowa border around midnight Jan. 26, 2014, when the trucker was supposedly resting and sleeping in Elkhorn, NE, according to his logbook.

Velasquez’s attorney Steve Goldman suggested on cross examination that the troopers’ interrogation techniques when his client was tired and traumatized from the accident elicited false answers that he had fallen asleep or had faked logbook entries.

At the end of the second day of testimony, Goldman filed a motion to dismiss both charges against his client, stating that prosecutors had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Velasquez had committed a crime in Illinois.

Judge Robert Kleeman said he would rule dismissing both counts on Thursday afternoon, but admonished attorneys on both sides to be prepared to give closing arguments.

Read more Patch coverage of the trucker crash:

• Injured Trooper Recalls ‘Waking Up Burning Alive’ In Trucker Crash Trial
• Bench Trial Begins Tuesday For Trucker Accused In Fatal I-88 Tollway Crash
• State Trooper Critically Injured in Fatal Accident is Oswego Resident
• 1 Killed, Trooper Injured in Fiery Crash on I-88
• Semi Driver Charged in I-88 Crash That Killed Tollway Worker, Critically Injured State Trooper