A former MBTA operator pleaded guilty today to negligent operation of his Green Line trolley, which crashed into another train as he drafted a text message while behind the wheel last spring, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.
AIDEN QUINN (D.O.B. 11/24/84) of Attleboro admitted to gross negligence by a person in control of a common conveyance, a misdemeanor, in connection with the May 8 collision in the tunnel between Government Center and Park Street stations.
Assistant District Attorney Paul Treseler recommended a sentence of two and a half years in a house of correction, with six months to serve behind bars and the balance suspended for a probationary period of two years. Suffolk Superior Court Judge Carol Ball sentenced Quinn to two years of probation with an order that he perform 100 hours of community service during that time. Ball recommended that Quinn’s community service encourage safe driving practices if possible.
Conley stood by the recommendation for jail time.
“What kind of message does this send to others?” Conley asked. “This defendant caused $10 million in damages, sent 64 people to the hospital, and shut down the Green Line on a busy spring evening. Why? Because he was trying to send a text message while pulling 80 tons of steel and glass and human lives. The riders on the train trusted him with their safety. This wasn’t an accident. It was the foreseeable consequence of his actions and he should have been punished accordingly.”
Had the case proceeded to trial, prosecutors would have introduced evidence and testimony to prove that Quinn was operating train 3612 and was pulling another trolley car outbound on his route shortly after 7:00 p.m.
Treseler said Quinn was composing a text message to his girlfriend while accelerating from zero to 25 mph along 586 feet of subway track. Treseler said Quinn passed a green light, a yellow light, and two red lights along that path before striking a motionless trolley with its brake lights on.
The force of the impact knocked the stationary trolley 36 feet along the track at speeds as high as 9 mph, Treseler told the court. Dozens of passengers on both trains were injured.
“The walkway of Government Center was turned into a triage unit,” Treseler said. “Two 80-ton trains collided because Mr. Quinn decided to text his girlfriend.”
Three passengers provided written impact statements for the court’s consideration. Treseler read each one aloud.
“I can’t skateboard, I can’t ride my bike, I can’t do martial arts,” wrote one passenger who suffered a concussion. “I can’t do these things which I enjoyed doing before because of fatigue, pain, and balance issues.”
A husband and wife who had taken the train into Boston that night also wrote to the court.
“When the cab driver taking us from the hospital back to our car at Sullivan Station told us that he heard the trolley driver had been texting, I refused to believe it,” the woman wrote. “I thought surely nobody in a position of public trust could possibly be that irresponsible or reckless.”
“I was terrified for both myself and my wife as I saw the back wall of our compartment crumple and bulge towards me and I remember thinking, ‘If that doesn’t stop we are dead because there is no way to get out of the train,’” her husband wrote. “I suffered severe whiplash and I was extremely scared due to the fact that it took me several minutes to get my wife conscious and coherent.”
Michael Coffey and Michael Schultz were the DA’s assigned victim-witness advocates. Attorney James Sultan represented Quinn.
