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BUTLER, Pa. (AP) -- A Bosnian immigrant truck driver, who lives in West Valley City, Utah, was to be sentenced Monday for causing a fiery 2003 wreck that killed a vacationing North Carolina family of five.
Ejub Grcic, 57, pleaded guilty in September to five counts of involuntary manslaughter in a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid deportation. Grcic also pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful activities for driving a commercial vehicle while unable to speak English.
He was scheduled to be sentenced Monday afternoon in Butler County Common Pleas Court.
State police said Grcic's 16-ton tractor-trailer was too heavy for the road's 10-ton limit when he ran a stop sign and crashed into a car July 7, 2003, at an intersection in Slippery Rock Township, about 45 miles north of Pittsburgh.
The crash killed Kenneth E. Kerr Jr., 35; his wife, Janet, 35; their two children, Kenneth Kerr III and Kathleen Kerr; and Janet Kerr's daughter from a previous marriage, Alessandra Hall. The Kerrs were from Wilson's Mills, N.C.
Grcic was originally charged with five counts of vehicular homicide and had likely faced deportation if he had been convicted of those more serious charges, his attorney said.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
