Man pleads guilty in I-95 dump truck chase, gets 3 years in jail

FLORENCE — A New York man accused of leading law enforcement officers on a 30-mile chase down Interstate 95 in a dump truck more than three years ago has pleaded guilty but mentally ill to assault on a law enforcement officer and failure to stop for a blue light.

Twelfth Circuit Court Judge Ralph King Anderson Jr. is sentenced Sergio Caridi, of Catskill, to what amounts to three years in jail.

For the assault charge, Anderson committed Caridi to the state Department of Correction for 10 years, suspended to 3 years. The judge sentenced Caridi to three years for the failure to stop charge, which is to run concurrent to the assault sentence.

A charge of assault and battery with intent to kill was dismissed in exchange for Caridi’s plea.

“This is one of the most egregious acts on the public highways in South Carolina that I have seen in 30 years,” Anderson said in handing down the sentence.

“This could have been an absolutely horrible situation out there on a busy interstate like I-95 and I believe that this is exactly as Judge Anderson said, except for the protective hand of the merciful God, someone could have been killed or severely injured,“ 12th Circuit Solicitor Ed Clements III said.

Caridi’s attorney, James T. McBratney of Florence, said his client is bi-polar and had not taken his medication when the incident happened.

McBratney said Caridi “zoned out and was out of touch with reality” when he decided to take a dump truck from the grading and paving company he owned to his father’s house in Florida so he could use use it to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

In court Thursday, Caridi spoke in his defense about the day and offered an apology to all involved.

“My wife took my child away from me for three years and my dad was diagnosed with cancer at the time, so I was, I guess, in a very bad way,“ Caridi told Anderson before his sentencing.

The chase began about 10:30 a.m. May 28, 2006, after Latta police clocked Caridi driving 65 mph in a 25 mph zone and got on I-95 at mile marker 181, S.C. Department of Public Safety spokesman Sid Gaulden said in an interview with the Morning News two days after Caridi’s arrest. Dillon and Florence county sheriff’s deputies and troopers soon joined the chase.

After Caridi sideswiped a trooper’s vehicle, officers shot out several of the truck’s tires and hit its diesel fuel tank. Gaulden said the chase lasted about five more miles before the truck came to a stop when it ran of out fuel at mile marker 143 in Sumter County. In all, 44 rounds were fired — mostly into the dump truck’s tires — by law enforcement officers during the incident, Clements said.

In the video, Caridi got out of the vehicle with his hands up and got on the ground before former state trooper John B. Sawyer kicked him in the head.

Caridi appeared to try to get up off the ground, and Sawyer kicked him again. Another officer uses a Taser on Caridi, who was subsequently handcuffed and taken to the Florence County Detention Center in Effingham, according to disciplinary records.

“The driver got out of his vehicle on his hands and knees but would not listen to commands because he kept getting up,” Sawyer wrote in a report about the incident. “I attempted to keep him on the ground by hitting his arms with my leg but he continued.”

Caridi was charged with first-offense driving under the influence, assault and battery with intent to kill, resisting arrest, failure to stop for a blue light and first-offense driving without a license, booking reports show.

In a report filed several days after the incident, Clements, who prosecuted the case against Caridi, wrote the troopers’ actions were justified, “with the exception of the officer who repeatedly kicked the individual after he got out of the truck,” recommending that Sawyer remain on leave while the patrol continued its review.

Sawyer, 34, was sentenced in federal court to three years probation June 23. He pleaded guilty Jan. 5 to violating Caridi’s civil rights and faced up to 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000, although federal guidelines recommended he serve less than two years. He was indicted July 17, 2008.

Law enforcement personnel, a doctor and a minister told Chief U.S. District Judge David Norton the officer in the footage was not the Sawyer they knew. The year-and-a-day Sawyer must serve in a halfway house means he is eligible for good time, meaning he might only have to serve 85 percent of the term.

Sawyer, who started work as a trooper in May 2000, was placed on administrative leave afterward. He resigned several months later, becoming a deputy for the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, according to disciplinary records.

Sawyer’s sentencing marked the conclusion of an investigation into the Patrol that began last year when videos showing troopers acting aggressively were made public in response to media requests. The chiefs of the Highway Patrol and Public Safety resigned amid criticism from black lawmakers, and three troopers taped while hitting suspects have faced felony civil rights charges.