Brandon Bostian, 38, was being tried for his role in the incident that killed eight passengers and injured over 200
The Amtrak engineer who was in control of the 2015 Port Richmond train derailment was found not guilty at trial on Friday, which killed eight passengers and injured more than 200.
Brandon Bastian, 38, was acquitted of nearly 250 counts of extortion, eight counts of involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment. The jury deliberated for a little more than an hour after the week-long trial, the Associated Press reported.
The accident occurred on a section of track known as Frankford Junction when Amtrak train number 188 traveled through a curve more than twice the speed limit.
Amtrak agreed to pay $265 million in civil settlements to victims and their families in 2016 and also install speed controls on all of its tracks between Boston and Washington, DC.
Bossian's lawyer, Brian McMonagle, said his client was a lifelong train enthusiast and had a perfect record at work until the day of the accident. ABC News reported that Bossian was distracted by reports of people throwing rocks around the crash.
"If a doctor gets distracted, if there's a disturbance, if they make a mistake, ... is that a crime?" McMonagle asked in the closing argument, according to FOX29. "In what world would this be a crime?"
The lawsuit was pursued by the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office. Its counsel argues that the jury did not consider Bostian's intention, but consider whether Bossian intentionally proceeded with knowledge of the risks he and other passengers would face. The AP reported that this was the required threshold for criminal negligence in the case.
The train was traveling from Washington, DC to New York City and stopped at 30th Street station just 10 minutes before the accident.
Federal safety investigators concluded that Bossian had lost his "situational awareness" at the time of the accident. He believed he had already crossed the S-curve where the train had leapt off the tracks, when in fact he was in the middle of it when he accelerated the train to 106 mph. The maximum speed on that section of tracks is 50 mph.
Investigators also found no evidence that Bossian was impaired or using his cellphone at the time of the accident.
The non-guilty verdict culminated in nearly seven years of investigation and legal proceedings that followed the derailment.
It first appeared that there would be no criminal case against Bossian when former District Attorney Seth Williams declined to charge Engineer in May 2017, citing a lack of evidence.
But shortly after, Attorney General Josh Shapiro's office had to take up the case due to pressure from state law and the victims' families.
As of September 2017, a Philadelphia Municipal Court judge dismissed the case, noting that the train derailment seemed accidental. In July 2019, a second attempt to prosecute Bostian was dismissed by a Philadelphia Common Pleas judge. Those charges were reinstated upon appeal in Pennsylvania Superior Court in May 2020, resulting in a hearing on Friday.
The state attorney general's office issued a statement following the jury's decision.
According to CNN, state prosecutors said, "There is no question that the excessive speed of the train operated by the defendant resulted in the death and injury of its passengers." "Throughout this lengthy legal process our goal was to seek justice for each victim and to help the families of the victims and their loved ones close."