‘It’s Time to Pay,’ Jury Is Told in Fatal Bus Crash
A jury began deliberating the fate of Larry Mahoney on Wednesday, after a prosecutor said “it’s time to pay” for the 27 deaths he allegedly caused in an alcohol-related head-on collision with a crowded bus.
Mahoney’s lawyers said he will forever be tormented by last year’s fiery disaster on Interstate 71, but they argued that the real culprit was the builder of the bus, in which victims died of a fire rather than the crash itself.
Special prosecutor Paul Richwalsky, however, said Mahoney must be held to account for his decision to drink and drive.
“I know that (Mahoney) regrets it. But that’s got nothing to do with this case,” Richwalsky said in closing arguments in Carroll Circuit Court. “The apologies . . . are too late. Now it’s time to pay.”
Defense attorneys Jack Hildebrand and William Summers said Ford Motor Co. manufactured a bus with a vulnerable fuel tank that made it a rolling “bomb.”
Mahoney sobbed while his attorneys appealed to the jury to free him from 82 criminal charges--27 counts of murder, 12 of first-degree assault, 42 of wanton endangerment and one of drunk driving.
Mahoney, 36, could be sentenced to 20 years to life in prison if convicted of murder.
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