BASTROP, Texas — A Bastrop County grand jury has formally charged the man accused of causing a deadly school bus crash in March.
Jurors indicted Jerry Hernandez on Tuesday, just one day after he appeared in court for the first time.
The Bastrop County District Attorney confirmed to KVUE that Hernandez was indicted on two charges of manslaughter and two charges of criminally negligent homicide.
Hernandez, 42, was driving a concrete pumper truck that swerved into a Hays CISD bus on State Highway 21. Five-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, who was on the bus, and 33-year-old Ryan Wallace, a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin who was driving behind it, were both killed in the crash.
Hernandez recently sent a handwritten letter to the judge asking for new representation. In the letter, Hernandez claimed his attorney at the time was only concerned with the best interests of Hernandez’s employer. He also claimed that in conversations with that attorney, the attorney said he was not going to put Hernandez’s employer in jail because the insurance was maxed out at $500,000.
The state attorney had no objections to the request and gave Hernandez a new court-appointed attorney, Justin Fohn from Bastrop.
According to court documents, the company that operates the truck Hernandez was driving didn’t finish a full background check on him. Those documents also revealed Hernandez admitted to using marijuana the night before the crash, cocaine the morning of, and driving after sleeping only three hours.
The company, FJM Concrete Pumping, faces multiple civil lawsuits connected to the crash. The families of multiple preschool students and teachers who were on the bus are all seeking payments, but their attorneys are concerned that because the law only required FJM to have $500,000 in insurance coverage, there won’t be enough money to help all the victims.
Hernandez's next court date is Oct. 28.