PHILADELPHIA _ A judge has dismissed all charges against Amtrak engineer Brandon Bostian, who was driving the train that derailed in 2015, killing eight people and injuring 150.
At a preliminary hearing Tuesday, Common Pleas Judge Thomas Gehret ruled there was no evidence of a crime.
"It's a horrible tragedy, but the law recognized there's a big difference between an accident and a crime," said Bostian's attorney Brian McMonagle.
Bostian drove the seven-car train that derailed May 12, 2015, at the Frankford Curve in the Port Richmond section of the city. The train had accelerated to 106 mph _ more than twice the speed posted _ as it approached the curve, according to findings by the National Transportation Safety Board.
The federal investigation concluded that Bostian had no alcohol or drugs in his system and was not using his cellphone at the time of the derailment. Bostian told the NTSB that he did not remember what had happened. The federal agency's review concluded that he lost "situational awareness," probably because of radio chatter about a rock hitting a SEPTA train near the curve shortly before the derailment.
State prosecutors brought a manslaughter case against Bostian after the Philadelphia district attorney's office had declined to press charges.
At the hearing, deputy state Attorney General Christopher Phillips described in detail the catastrophic injuries the crash caused to each of the deceased. Bostian, wearing a gray suit, listened with little expression.
But as the first witness, Philadelphia Police Officer Michael Maresca, described what he found when he arrived at the crash site, Bostian looked down several times.
"I found a man in the weeds," Maresca recalled. "He was not alive."
The officer, one of the first to respond to the crash, described a scene with little light, where the shredded first car on the train looked as if it "had been kicked and stomped on. Just rolled up."
"I found a Navy seaman next to a car," Maresca continued. "He was not alive."
When McMonagle questioned the officer, he noted that Maresca played no role in determining the cause of the derailment.
"I don't know what happened," Maresca said. "At that point we did not know if it was a terrorist act."
Other witnesses called at the hearing included Amtrak officials and passenger Blair Berman, who encountered Bostian just after the derailment.
Herman, hobbled by her injuries, asked to use Bostian's cellphone. Initially, he refused, but Berman didn't take no for an answer. "I was very aggressive," she recalled.
As she called her father, she asked Bostian where they were, and he was specific about the location, Frankford curve, and the train number, 188. That level of awareness seemed at odds with other recollections. Philadelphia Police Detective Joseph Knoll recalled meeting Bostian at Einstein Medical Center and hearing him ask about his whereabouts.
"Are we in New York?" Knoll recalled Bostian saying. "I heard him say that."
McMonagle asked both Berman and Knoll whether they were aware Bostian sustained a head injury in the crash, and both said they had seen evidence of an injury. Bostian suffered a concussion in the crash.
