WEST SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — The co-owner of a now-defunct trucking company pleaded guilty to three charges of making false statements after he falsified driving logs.
According to a press release from U.S. Office of the Transportation Office of the Inspector General, Dunyadar Gasanov pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to making false statements.
Dunyadar Gasanov and Dartanyan Gasanov were previously indicted on February 25, 2021. According to court filings, Dunyadar Gasanov co-owned the now-defunct Westfield Transport Inc., a for-hire interstate motor carrier that transported vehicles. Dartanyan Gasanov pleaded not guilty to similar charges and is awaiting trial.
From May 3, 2019, to June 23, 2019, Dunyadar and, allegedly, Dartanayan Gasanov, falsified driving logs in order to evade Federal regulations designed to ensure the safety of roadways and drivers.
According to an Associated Press analysis of federal data, Westfield Transport had faced over 60 violations over the previous 24 months before a deadly crash that killed seven in June 2019.
About one in five inspections of its vehicles ended with federal investigators issuing temporary orders saying the carrier was not authorized to operate. The company’s out-of-service rate is 20.8% — a figure nearly four times greater than the national average of 5.5%.
Dunyadar Gasanov instructed at least one Westfield Transport employee to falsify records, thereby exceeding the number of permissible driving hours, and then made false statements to Federal safety inspectors about manipulating devices that track drivers’ on and off duty hours. He also falsely stated to safety inspectors that he met a Westfield Transport driver, Volodymyr Zhukovskyy, who was involved in a crash in New Hampshire on June 21, 2019 that killed seven on the day the he was hired. Investigators learned that Dunyadar Gasanov had known Zhukovskyy for years prior.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)stated in its report on the crash that Westfield Transport’s owners tried to add Zhukovskyy to its insurance policy an hour after the driver was involved in the fatal crash. Investigators claimed that Westfield Transport failed to check Zhukovskyy’s driving record before hiring him. According to the NTSB report, Zhukovskyy admitted to using heroin and cocaine on the day of the fatal crash.
The NTSB report also asserts that Westfield Transport managers and drivers “routinely tampered with electronic logging devices and falsified hours-of-service logs.” The NTSB report called for the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) to remove KeepTruckin devices from its list of approved vendors.
In 2022, a jury found Zhukovskyy not guilty of multiple manslaughter and negligent homicide counts stemming from the June 21, 2019, collision in Randolph that killed seven members of the Jarheads Motorcycle Club, an organization of Marine Corps veterans and their spouses in New England.
DOT-OIG is conducting this investigation with assistance from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
