No criminal charges will be brought against the engineer who fell asleep at the controls in the deadly 2013 derailment of a Metro-North train in The Bronx, prosecutors said Thursday.
The National Transportation Safety Board concluded last year that William Rockefeller nodded off because he suffered from an undiagnosed sleep disorder and had a drastic shift in his work schedule.
“There was no criminality in the act, therefore no criminal charges,” said Terry Raskyn, spokeswoman for Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.
She said Johnson had decided several months ago not to bring charges in the crash, in which four passengers were killed.
The decision was made public in the midst of the investigation into Tuesday’s deadly Amtrak derailment in Philadelphia.
Rockefeller’s lawyer, Jeffrey Chartier, said Johnson “came to the only logical conclusion, which is the same as the NTSB — which is that there’s no criminality on the part of Mr. Rockefeller. It was simply a tragic accident.”
He said Rockefeller is struggling with post-traumatic stress from the crash and unable to work.
William RockefellerReuters“It’s something that haunts him every day, and I’m hoping the public acknowledgment that he didn’t do anything wrong will be some healing and closure for him,” Chartier said. “His heart is still broken for all those people who were affected by this.”
The dead were Kisook Ahn, a nurse returning home to the city from an overnight shift in Ossining; Jim Lovell, a “Today” show lighting technician on his way to work on the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree; Donna Smith, a paralegal heading into the city to hear her sister sing Handel’s “Messiah” with a choral group; and James Ferrari, a building maintenance worker putting his daughter through college.
In the crash on Dec. 1, 2013, Rockefeller’s train was headed for Grand Central Terminal from Poughkeepsie when it derailed as it hit a curve near the Spuyten Duyvil station at 82 mph, federal investigators said. The speed limit on the turn was 30 mph.
More than 70 people were injured.
Rockefeller told investigators that right before the crash, “it was sort of like I was dazed, you know, looking straight ahead, almost like mesmerized.”
He said he was roused only when he sensed “something wasn’t right” with the train and threw on the emergency brake.
