Judge orders bus company linked to Arizona crash that killed 6 to stop interstate operations

Judge orders bus firm to stop interstate service

A federal judge has ordered a bus company involved in an Arizona crash that killed six people and injured more than a dozen others to cease interstate operations.

U.S. District Judge George King of the Central District of California in Los Angeles issued the order Saturday against Tierra Santa Inc. and its owner, Cayetano Martinez.

Martinez earlier signed a consent decree prohibiting him or any affiliated company from hauling passengers without U.S. Department of Transportation authority, which is required to take passengers from one state to another.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration demanded Van Nuys, Calif.-based Tierra Santa stop operating Friday, the day of the crash south of Phoenix. The judge’s order makes the shutdown enforceable by the court.

“They knew they were running illegally,” Duane DeBruyne, a Department of Transportation spokesman in Washington, D.C., said Sunday.

A federal complaint to be filed against the company Monday says the motor carrier administration previously shut down Martinez, who then attempted “to reincarnate himself as a new carrier” that unsuccessfully sought Department of Transportation operating authority, the department said in a news release Sunday.

“Martinez has shown a persistency and determination to continue operating under new entities and businesses,” the release quotes the complaint as saying.

DeBruyne said further information from the complaint was not available because it had not been filed in court.

Thom Mrocek, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles, said the complaint will be filed Monday, but that the consent decree Martinez signed late Friday already settled it.

The lawsuit process allows the court to have jurisdiction, and “if there’s a violation, you could be brought into court,” Mrocek said Sunday.

Messages left by The Associated Press on Saturday and Sunday seeking comment from Tierra Santa were not returned.

The bus that crashed early Friday entered the United States from Mexico at El Paso, Texas.

It was headed to Phoenix to change drivers when it hit a pickup truck, veered onto the left shoulder of the road and rolled on Interstate 10 on the Gila River Indian Reservation. The impact crushed the roof and knocked out the windows.

More than a dozen passengers remained hospitalized over the weekend.

Tierra Santa applied last April for operating authority to haul passengers across state lines. The Department of Transportation notified the company by registered mail that it could not conduct interstate transportation during the review, DeBruyne said.

The agency sought more information for the application but the company never responded. In December, the department sent another certified letter telling the company it had run out of time and was not authorized to take passengers across state lines, DeBruyne said.

The consent decree does not prevent civil penalties against Martinez for possible violations of motor carrier safety regulations, transportation officials said.

On the Net:

Consent decree: www.dot.gov/affairs/Consent%20Decree.pdf

Judge’s order: www.dot.gov/affairs/Signed%20Order.pdf