PARIS – A New Hampshire logging truck driver accused of causing a motorist’s death was acquitted of a manslaughter charge Thursday.

Justice Ellen Gorman announced her verdict after two days of testimony in the jury-waived trial in Oxford County Superior Court. Lee Hillsgrove, 46, of Alton, N.H., had faced the prospect of a prison sentence if convicted.

Prosecutors blamed Hillsgrove for driving in an unsafe manner before his fully loaded rig crossed the centerline to avoid a pickup truck that stopped to turn into a driveway in South Paris.

In the process, the rig collided with an oncoming car and logs toppled down, killing Rebecca Shaw, 54, of Bethel.

Hillsgrove and his brother Wayne Hillsgrove, also of Alton, were each driving logging trucks to a West Paris mill on March 10, 2003. Wayne Hillsgrove’s rig was in the lead.

Witnesses and reconstruction experts testified that the wreck occurred at 12:27 p.m., 31/2 miles from the mill, when both logging trucks overtook a 1994 Ford Ranger pickup.

Wayne Hillsgrove veered right into the emergency lane, avoiding the pickup driven by Willie Gaudreau, 38, of North Waterford.

Lee Hillsgrove, who was driving a 73,000-pound logging truck behind his brother, swerved left into oncoming traffic, sideswiped the pickup and collided violently with Shaw’s Volvo.

Prosecutor Joseph M. O’Connor charged Hillsgrove with felony manslaughter for operating “much too closely” to his brother’s truck, giving himself too little time to react when his brother swerved.

By crossing the centerline, O’Connor said, Lee Hillsgrove had to know that Shaw “would probably die, and that he would walk away.”

“It was a gross deviation of conduct to turn into the oncoming lane to kill another person to save his life. The defendant may be a nice person and a good family man, but that was wrong,” O’Connor said.

Defense lawyer Thomas J. Nale said Lee Hillsgrove was distracted by seeing his brother’s abrupt wrenching move to the right, then turned his attention back to his lane, and suddenly saw Gaudreau’s pickup.

“This was not a matter of choosing who am I going to hurt, or how am I going to hurt. It was a reaction. It is a natural instinct to try and avoid hitting something,” Nale said.