Former Union Pacific employee gets 12 years in death of co-worker
(The following story by Deanna Boyd appeared on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram website on June 8, 2010.)
JOHNSON COUNTY, Texas A former railroad worker who had methamphetamine in his system when he crashed a piece of equipment two years ago, killing a co-worker, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.
Santos Perez Jr., 31, who worked for Union Pacific, pleaded guilty June 1 to manslaughter in connection with the death of John Hadfield, 28, of Paoli, Okla.
The crash occurred around noon May 17, 2008, near Grandview as the two men, both operating lag screw machines, replaced rail in a curved stretch of track south of County Road 305.
Perez told Johnson County sheriff's deputies that he was northbound when he spotted Hadfield's machine stopped on the tracks and Hadfield standing in front of it loading supplies. He said he tried to stop but could not. The impact derailed the 61/2-ton machine and crushed Hadfield.
Hadfield was pronounced dead at the scene.
Tests revealed that Perez had methamphetamine in his system. A Johnson County grand jury indicted Perez on a manslaughter charge, accusing him of recklessly causing Hadfield's death by operating a vehicle at unsafe speeds with illegal drugs in his body.
Assistant District Attorney Trey Brown said prosecutors were open to a plea agreement primarily because Perez had no criminal record and would therefore be eligible for probation if convicted. He also said jurors would have had the option to convict Perez on a lesser offense of criminally negligent homicide, a state jail felony punishable by up to two years' incarceration.
"He has young children, and a lot of times sympathy comes into play with that," said Brown, who worked the case along with prosecutor Nancy Williams and District Attorney Dale Hanna. "It really wasn't worth the chance, especially when we could get him to agree to take 12 years out of a possible 20."
Perez's attorney, Jim Lane, called the case "a tragic accident" but declined to comment further.
In a telephone interview from the Johnson County Jail last year, Perez acknowledged taking methamphetamine but insisted that it was three days earlier and that he was not high when the crash occurred. He blamed the wreck on faulty equipment.
"I was trying to yell and honk the horn," Perez said. "I'm hitting the brakes as well as the reverse pedal, seeing if I can stop or slow down."
But Perez said his machine kept going.
"He never saw it coming," Perez said. "They think I did it intentionally. This man was my friend."
A Federal Railroad Administration report, a copy of which was obtained by the Star-Telegram, states that no mechanical problems were found and that the likely scenario was that Perez did not see the stopped machine until just a few seconds before impact. Prosecutors also believe that Perez may have been texting.
The report notes that:
Perez had written down the wrong milepost during the morning job briefing and incorrectly thought he had to travel 10 miles, perhaps leading to his inattentiveness.
Perez would have had ample time to stop the machine if he had been looking in the direction he was traveling, as he told investigators had been the case.
Another employee who had been traveling behind Perez did not see Perez slow down or blow his horn before the impact.
A Union Pacific supervisor saw Perez drink about 13 bottles of water from the time of the crash to when Perez was taken to Alvarado for drug and alcohol testing.
Although the plea agreement was reached June 1, prosecutors say formal signing of the paperwork by state District Judge William Bosworth was delayed until Monday so that relatives of Hadfield, who had a young daughter, could give victim impact statements before Perez.
Hadfield's widow, Marie Hadfield, previously told the Star-Telegram that while she believed Perez needed to serve time and get drug counseling, she did not wish for him to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
"That would be taking him away from his family," she said. "That would just be another family without a father. It wouldn't make it right."
