PHILADELPHIA (AP) – The state’s top prosecutor on Friday charged a speeding Amtrak engineer with causing a catastrophe, involuntary manslaughter and other crimes in a 2015 derailment that came after he accelerated to 106 mph on a 50 mph curve.
Prosecutors said they were in talks with engineer Brandon Bostian’s attorney to have him surrender on the charges.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro expanded on charges a Philadelphia judge approved a day earlier after the family of a woman killed in the crash sought a private criminal complaint. The judge ordered city prosecutors to charge Bostian with two misdemeanors over Rachel Jacobs’ death in the May 12, 2015, derailment. Shapiro added the felony charge of risking or causing a catastrophe along with seven additional counts of involuntary manslaughter.
“This would not have happened had a courageous family, the Jacobs family, not stood up against the decision of a local prosecutor not to press charges,” said lawyer Thomas R. Kline, who had sought the private complaint on the family’s behalf. “That was clearly wrong, as evidenced by the attorney general not only reversing course but adding charges.”
Kline said the attorney general on Friday “correctly and appropriately charged Brandon Bostian for his reckless disregard of the passengers in whose safety he was entrusted.”