Gary Sledzik may have plowed his pickup truck into a toll booth at the Maine Turnpike, but he says police are partly to blame for the crash that killed a New Hampshire woman and her daughter.
Sledzik's lawyer, Anthony Sineni III, has filed a notice of claim with the state Attorney General's Office accusing state police of negligence for not stopping Sledzik even though they received calls that he was driving erratically.
The claim says Sledzik deserves more than $300,000 in damages from the state.
However, Sineni said Tuesday the claim is legal maneuvering, and Sledzik, 44, of Webster, Mass., will not sue the state. Filing the notice of claim simply allows Sledzik to bring in the state police as a co-defendant should the victims' relatives sue Sledzik, Sineni said.
In that event, a jury might find Sledzik and state police at fault, assigning part of the financial damages to the state.
9/24/97
An Associated Press dispatch from Portland, Maine, September 24, 1997:
