Trucker involved in fatal crash seeks arraignment delay

PORTLAND — A Pennsylvania trucker whose rig crashed into a carload of teen-agers, killing four of them, is seeking to delay his arraignment on a charge that he falsified his log book.

Robert C. Hornbarger, 48, of Clearville, Pa., contends that the April 29 arraignment in Superior Court in Portland should be postponed because of his ongoing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Mr. Hornbarger’s physician has advised (his lawyer) that active treatment for Hornbarger’s severe symptoms will continue for a period of time that is now uncertain,” the attorney, Michael E. Saucier, said in papers seeking the postponement.

Hornbarger was driving a tractor-trailer for Wal-Mart when it crashed into a car that was stopped in the breakdown lane of the Maine Turnpike in Falmouth on Oct. 10. Four of the five young people in the car were killed.

A Cumberland County grand jury refused to indict the trucker for manslaughter in December 1993, and state Attorney General Michael E. Carpenter said in March that he could not justify taking the case before a second grand jury.