Canadian Truck Driver Sentenced For Triple-Fatal Hudson Valley Crash

ULSTER COUNTY, NY — A Canadian truck driver has been sentenced to one year in prison for a 2020 accident which killed three people.

The driver, Luc Leblanc, 67, was convicted of three counts of criminally negligent homicide following a jury trial earlier this year in Ulster County Court.

On Friday, Leblanc was sentenced to one year for each count, to run concurrently, according to the court clerk’s office.

Leblanc had been in jail since June 2025, so he already served one year.

The Aug. 2, 2020 crash happened on Interstate 87 in Ulster County.

According to the Ulster County District Attorney's Office, a Honda Accord had stopped due to traffic, and Leblanc crashed into the back of it.

Three members of the same family in the Accord perished. They included 47-year-old Zulika Salim, 14-year-old Chelsea Gayapersad, and 10-year-old Justin Gayapersad. All three were in the backseat. Two people in the front seat survived, according to the district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors secured a warrant for Leblanc and worked to have him extradited from Canada to face prosecution. He was arrested by Canadian authorities in August 2023, but fought extradition to the United States, prosecutors said. He later surrendered in May 2025, and he was in Ulster County Jail since June 11, 2025, the district attorney’s office said.

The maximum sentence Leblanc could have received was four years in prison.

Prosecutors asserted that Leblanc had been distracted and not properly keeping his attention on the road.

“The defendant testified on his own behalf at trial and admitted that he took his focus off the road at the time to tune his radio,” the district attorney’s office has said.

The district attorney’s office did not respond to a request for a comment on the sentencing.

Following the jury verdict, District Attorney Emmanuel Nneji called it a “preventable tragedy.”

“It only required the driver, like anyone else driving any vehicle, to focus on the road and the safety of everyone,” Nneji said. “The only way we can stop such tragedies is by caring, thinking, and anticipating the unexpected when we try or start to do something that takes our focus away from the road.”

Attorney Dave Gervais of Plattsburgh, New York, who represented Leblanc, could not be reached for comment.

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