NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ – A Middlesex County Grand Jury handed up an indictment this week for the Walmart truck driver involved in a deadly 2014 New Jersey Turnpike crash that seriously injured actor Tracy Morgan and killed Morgan’s friend James McNair, 63.
Kevin Roper, 36, of Gainesville Georgia was driving without sleep on June 7, 2014 when his Walmart tractor-trailer plowed into the back of a limousine bus and a 2012 Mercedes Sprinter and other vehicles that had slowed for construction work around milepost 71.5 of the northbound Turnpike lanes in Cranbury Township, police said.
The deadly collision involved six vehicles including two tractor trailers, the limo-bus, an SUV and two passenger cars, sending Morgan to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick where he was in a coma and listed in critical condition for two weeks.
An investigation into the crash by New Jersey State Police and other agencies found that Roper had not taken required sleep breaks and was up longer than allowed at the time of the crash, officials said following the accident.
In the indictment this week, Roper is charged with 10 different counts including aggravated manslaughter in the first degree, vehicular homicide in the second degree, four counts of third degree aggravated assault and four counts of fourth degree aggravated assault, according to the indictment.
Morgan was returning with six others in the limo from a performance at the Dover Downs Hotel and Casino in Delaware when the crash occurred.
The actor settled a civil suit against Walmart regarding the accident earlier this year. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
