NEWARK, Ohio—A truck driver who triggered a chain-reaction crash with a bus that killed three Ohio high school band students and three adults was convicted of vehicular homicide Friday but cleared on more serious charges.
The three students killed in the 2023 crash were on a charter bus, and a teacher and two chaperones in another vehicle hit by the tractor trailer also died.
Licking County Judge David Branstool found Jacob McDonald, of Zanesville, guilty on six misdemeanor counts of vehicular homicide, but ruled that he was not guilty of aggravated vehicular homicide, a felony.
The judge said McDonald’s actions in causing the crash were negligent but not reckless. McDonald could have faced three decades in prison if he had been convicted on all of the more serious charges, but instead he now faces a maximum sentence of 18 months, according to his attorney….