A trucker charged in a crash that left six dead is now behind bars one day after Tennessee added him to its ‘Top 10 Most Wanted Fugitive’ list.
In Kentucky, Benjamin Scott Brewer, 39, of London, Tenn., was arrested at a Lexington shopping center on Sir Barton Way on Aug. 7. He is being held at the Fayette County Detention Center on a $500,000 bond following his Aug. 3 indictment in Tennessee on charges related to his involvement in a nine-vehicle crash in Chattanooga.
Lexington police charged Brewer as a fugitive, as well as for criminal mischief and possession of less than two grams of meth.
On June 26, Brewer’s truck collided with vehicles stopped in a construction zone on Interstate 75. A Hamilton County Grand Jury indicted him on six counts of vehicular homicide, four counts of reckless aggravated assault, one count of DUI by impairment of narcotics, one count of speeding and one count of false report of duty status.
Last month, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration declared him an imminent hazard to public safety and ordered him not to operate any commercial motor vehicle in interstate commerce.
The agency’s post-crash investigation indicated Brewer had falsified his records-of-duty status when he reported being off-duty from June 15 until 7:00 a.m. on June 25. His employer’s vehicle tracking system and other records showed he had been on-duty and driving on June 22, 23 and 24.
Brewer also had omitted a June 2013 crash and a January 2015 citation for speeding 16-20 miles-per-hour above the limit on a June 16 employment application. Last May, he had tested positive for controlled substances following a court-order controlled substances test.