RMV scandal: What we know about the failures within the registry before New Hampshire crash that killed 7

Aug. 4--The horrific crash in New Hampshire that left seven motorcyclists dead and families heartbroken had a ripple effect across state lines into Massachusetts and grew into a scandal over failures at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

Authorities in Massachusetts wanted to know how and why 23-year-old West Springfield resident Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, the man accused of killing the motorcycle riders, was still behind the wheel.

Zhukovskyy had a driving under the influence arrest one month prior in Connecticut. His license was never suspended on that charge. RMV officials said his out-of-state violation was one of thousands left unprocessed.

Massachusetts lawmakers on the Joint Committee on Transportation launched an investigation examining why the Registry of Motor Vehicle failed to suspend Volodymyr Zhukovskyy after his May arrest.

The committee's investigation into the Massachusetts Department of Transportation led to several bombshells this week, as emails and testimony revealed an agency in disorder. Some employees knew for years about problems processing paper notices with out-of-state violations, and the backlogs multiplied.

With the revelations, however, came wonky details of multiple backlogs, record-keeping procedures and at times contradictory testimony. Here's how to make sense of it.

What happened in New Hampshire?

Zhukovskyy was driving a black 2016 Dodge 2500 pickup truck with an empty car carrier trailer attached Friday night on Route 2 in Randolph, New Hampshire when he crashed into a group of motorcyclists, authorities said. Seven motorcyclists died, and three were injured. Authorities said Zhukovskyy was not injured.

According to a federal inspection report released this week, Zhukovskyy said he was reaching for a beverage when his pickup truck swerved into the members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club. The report states he was high on a narcotic or amphetamine.

In the wake of the deadly crash, Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack announced there were tens of thousands of unprocessed paper notices of out-of-state violations.

Registrar Erin Deveney stepped down.

Pollack and Acting Registrar Jamey Tesler said employees combed through the backlog, processing more than 2,000 suspensions for 1,607 drivers. But few details came out explaining why the backlog existed before this week's legislative hearing. Weeks after the crash, Pollack said she wouldn't elaborate on the RMV's failures because the department was undergoing a forensic audit by a private consulting firm, Grant Thornton.

MassDOT has until Monday afternoon to hand over RMV records for lawmakers' investigation

Lawmakers urged MassDOT to hand over correspondence and other records that state officials initially declined to hand over for the legislative investigation, following the death of seven motorcyclists in a New Hampshire crash involving a Massachusetts driver.

Who was killed in the crash?

The victims of the crash were members of the Jarhead Motorcycle Club, a group of former Marines and their spouses. They included Jo-Ann and Edward Corr, both 58, of Lakeville, Massachusetts; Michael Ferazzi, 62, of Contoocook, New Hampshire; Albert Mazza Jr., 59, of Lee, New Hampshire; Desma Oakes, 42, of Concord, New Hampshire; Aaron Perry, 45, of Farmington, New Hampshire; and Daniel Pereira, 58, of Riverside, Rhode Island.

Their deaths shocked bikers across the country, and thousands joined a memorial ride to honor "The Fallen 7."

What do we know about Zhukovskyy?

Zhukovskyy worked as a truck driver for Westfield Transport and has a commercial license. But his record shows a troubled history of violations.

There's the May 21 arrest in Connecticut: Zhukovskyy was arrested on a drunk driving charge and is accused of refusing to take a chemical test.

Zhukovskyy's license was also suspended for several years after he was arrested for drunk driving in Westfield. He was arrested in February at a Denny's in Baytown, Texas, after police said they found a crackpipe in his pocket. He was involved in a rollover crash in Texas weeks before the fatal June 21 crash.

Body cam video shows Texas arrest of Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, charged with killing 7 motorcyclists in N.H. crash

Zhukovskyy was arrested Feb. 11 in a Baytown, Texas Denny's for alleged possession of a crack pipe.

Who's investigating the crash?

The investigation into the crash has expanded to include multiple agencies because it involved people from multiple states and a commercial driver.

The New Hampshire State Police, the National Traffic Safety Board and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration are looking into the incident. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey launched an investigation into the trucking company that hired Zhukovskyy, Westfield Transport.

The Massachusetts Legislature stepped in after transportation officials announced Zhukovskyy's license was part of a massive backlog of unprocessed out-of-state violations.

Who's come under scrutiny since the crash?

Pollack blamed the registry's senior leadership for the agency's failures during her testimony this week, but she declined to name anyone besides Deveney.

So far, Deveney is the only senior MassDOT official who has resigned since the New Hampshire crash. Payroll records show Deveney had a six-figure salary, making $143,871 in 2018. She made $75,147 in 2019 until her resignation, which included a buyout of $34,527.

Pollack, who says she was unaware of any issues until after the crash, also faced questions about how she and other top state officials could have gone so long without knowing about record-keeping problems that seemed like an open secret among RMV staff.

Since Tuesday's hearing, Sen. Eric Lesser has called for the resignation of Merit Rating Board Director Thomas Bowes, one of the supervisors who knew about unprocessed out-of-state violations. Bowes made $113,231 in 2018, according to state payroll records.

Gov. Charlie Baker received questions about whether his office knew about any problems within the registry.

RMV hearing puts pressure on Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollock, Gov. Charlie Baker

Lawmakers said they were skeptical that the Registry of Motor Vehicle's failures, known by several of the agency's employees, didn't become apparent to top officials leading up to the fatal New Hampshire crash.

What did lawmakers learn from Tuesday's testimony?

Perhaps the biggest takeaway was that several RMV employees knew about the record-keeping problems -- at least as early as spring 2016 -- and either passed the buck or ignored the growing backlog altogether.

The responsibility of tackling the paper notices of out-of-state violations appeared to be the responsibility of the RMV's Driver Control Unit, which has hearing officers who review suspension notices and appeals.

But Keith Costantino said he didn't know the unit was supposed to process those out-of-state violations when he became director in 2015. He told lawmakers he heard about the boxes in August and learned in spring 2016 that they were a three-year backlog of unprocessed out-of-state violations.

He told Deveney. In the fall of 2016, she ordered another team called the Merit Rating Board to deal with the backlog.

Deveney told lawmakers this week that no protocol for handling the backlog existed prior to 2016. Even after the Merit Rating Board took over the backlog, the out-of-state violations weren't fully processed.

Members of the Joint Committee on Transportation grilled transportation officials and Registry of Motor Vehicles employees Tuesday at an oversight hearing on the RMV's policies for processing license violations.

What's the Merit Rating Board?

The RMV's Merit Rating Board, led by Bowes, maintains driving records for automobile insurance providers.

Costantino said he recommended passing on the backlog to the board because its employees had the technology to scan notices and data-entry experience.

What happened to that backlog?

After consulting Costantino and the Division of Insurance, the Merit Rating Board decided in early 2017 it would clear six months of the three-year backlog. The reason? Officials were worried about the sudden impact old violations would have on driver's insurance premiums.

It is unclear how much of that three-year backlog was dealt with. Bowes and Pollack both say some out-of-state violations were entered into a database, but they give differing accounts on how long the backlog was by March 2018 when the agency changed computer systems.

After March 2018, those paper-based out-of-state violations stopped being processed altogether. Sometime after the backlog was moved to the purview of a unit called SPEXS, though Bowes seemed completely unaware of that development when he testified.

Thomas Bowes, director of the Merit Rating Board, testified before the Joint Committee on Transportation Tuesday.

Shouldn't the new computer system have made record-keeping easier?

The RMV switched from ALARS, its old computer system, to ATLAS in March 2018 as part of its efforts to comply with the federal REAL ID law.

Bowes said the Merit Rating Board had several issues with the transition. The board's computers shut down for up to 10 days, Bowes said. Not only were the paper notices of out-of-state violations not processed, but a new backlog of more than 20,000 in-state violations accumulated.

The board's computers shut down for up to 10 days, Bowes said. Not only were the paper notices of out-of-state violations not processed, but a new backlog of more than 20,000 in-state violations accumulated.

Bowes and Deveney both said they had MRB employees prioritize clearing the in-state backlog and abandoned efforts to address the unprocessed paper notices. None of these paper-based out-of-state violations were processed until after the deadly New Hampshire crash.

Did any employee report the issues?

Merit Rating Board employee Caroline Quan emailed Costantino, Bowes and other officials in January after she learned that ATLAS was having problems with those notices. She suggested the agency investigate communications between Massachusetts and other states, but the email thread the committee received ends there.

Other employees learned out-of-state violations weren't processed in May after a psychologist sent a letter addressed to Deveney expressing concerns about his patients. An addiction specialist, he said several patients reported drunk driving arrests in New Hampshire but still have valid licenses.

Frederick Apel, who worked in MassDOT's Office of the Ombudsman, shared the psychologist's letter on May 6 to several RMV officials, including supervisors Bowes, Costantino and Scott Freeman. During this thread, Apel tells an employee that he was told it would be up to of those three supervisors to address mailed-in out-of-state violations being processed.

That employee, Donna Cabey, tells the group she learned during an ATLAS meeting that the agency may have never created a way for New Hampshire to submit records to Massachusetts in ATLAS. In a separate email, Cabey tells Apel to "sound the alarm." Apel then emailed Deveney saying he planned to call her about these violations.

One memo created by Deveney announces that the Merit Rating Board will tackle problems regarding a three-year backlog and lists the MassDOT and Office of the Governor's legal teams as recipients. But Pollack said on Tuesday that the memo was a draft and neither team ever received the document.

Pollack also said her office was aware of some issue with out-of-state violations being assigned to the Merit Rating Board. Yet she said, "we have no evidence that this issue was ever framed as being about anything other than old traffic citations."

MassDOT project manager Brie-Anne Dwyer testified Tuesday before the Joint Committee on Transportation.

Were there other red flags?

Brie-Anne Dwyer, who became a project manager in January, was working on a routine audit of the Merit Rating Board when she came across 12,829 "open tasks" on the ATLAS computer system. She told lawmakers she believed they referred to unprocessed out-of-state violations.

She met with Bowes in March and later told Deveney. She also sent a memo about her preliminary findings to her supervisor, Jim Logan, on April 22. In the memo, she recommended having Costantino's team, the Driver Control Unit, deal with the nearly 13,000 unprocessed violations. She gave Bowes 60 days, or until June 28, to help with the transition.

Dwyer said she didn't see any evidence her recommendations had been implemented by June 21, when the fatal crash happened. Her audit was put on hold after the incident. Instead, Pollack and Tesler said they assigned the "open tasks" to the SPEXS team, which found that all but 2,500 items were duplicate notices.

Lawmakers asked Pollack why she wasn't informed of these findings. Pollack said it's not customary for such findings to reach her until an audit is completed, and Dwyer's was ongoing at the time of the crash.

Now what happens?

Legislators plan to schedule another hearing date to interview representatives of Fast Enterprise, the vendor that implemented the computer system; the ATLAS system; and Grant Thornton, the private consulting firm conducting the forensic audit of MassDOT.

The results of Grant Thornton's audit are expected around Aug. 12.

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