AVONDALE — Holidays and family gatherings will never be the same for Zackery Leffler's loved ones.
The Northern Kentucky 25-year-old had been celebrating a recent engagement to his high school sweetheart and a budding startup career when his life came to a crashing halt. In December 2023, he was killed when a 40-ton semi crashed in his truck.
When Ohio state troopers arrived at the scene, they found the tractor-trailer angled down an embankment along I-80 and Leffler's pickup truck reduced to a twisted mass of metal.
"When you read the police report — (Zack) didn't stand a chance. Zack was in the left lane, this guy appeared to be in the left lane ... and he turned so fast," Leffler's father Joe said.
Joe Leffler joined friends and family as well as attorney Shean Williams of the Cochran Firm Wednesday in a call for justice after they say a judge denied it.
On Monday, the driver of the semi-truck learned he would not spend time in jail. Davit Pluidze had previously pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor vehicular homicide charge and was given 30 days house arrest plus two years probation, 50 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $750 fine.
Before the judge handed down the sentence, Pluidze apologized to the court saying he’d never been in an accident, had never used drugs or alcohol while driving and on the day of the crash had a medical condition causing him to lose consciousness and lose control of his truck.
“The judge didn’t suspend his license,” Leffler's mother Shannon Ponder said. “I don’t understand how you don’t suspend someone’s license when they just told you that they’ve caused a fatality because they have a medical condition.”
Leffler's parents said the sentencing was the first time either they or prosecutors had heard of a possible medical condition. If they had known earlier, perhaps investigators would have looked into the claim earlier, they said.
"This guy killed a kid with such a bright future and he gets 30 days in his home in New Jersey and Zack's dead," Joe Leffler said.
Leffler's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in June against Pluidze and RFS Group, Inc., the trucking company he was driving for at the time of the crash, claiming Pludize shouldn't have been allowed behind the wheel.
The complaint is filed in federal court in Chicago where RFS Group, Inc. is based.
Williams said troopers found prescription pill bottles in the truck cabin but cleared Pluidze of any suspicion of impairment. Pluidze was taken to the hospital and released hours later.
Despite federal regulations requiring CDL drivers involved in fatal crashes to take a drug test, Williams said Pluidze was only subjected to a standard blood draw at the hospital.
"No one in the investigation of this collision did a drug test on him, a toxicology report or any impairment test on him at the scene," Williams said. "We are here because this bad driver with this bad driving history who clearly had something going on with him that day got no jail time. He is still driving today for another company."
Leffler's family is now seeking legislative change, looking to lawmakers to mandate drug testing for truck drivers involved in deadly crashes. They said the decision should not be left to the discretion of local law enforcement.
The family also wants to ensure the Department of Transportation leads all investigations involving fatal trucking accidents.
"If you have a DOTE officer from the state of Ohio instead of a regular law enforcement officer investigating and understanding what these regulations are, this investigation would have been done differently and we believe the outcome would have been different because we believe that this would have been a felony and not a misdemeanor," Williams said.
WCPO reached out to RFS Group, Inc. for comment but did not receive a response before the time of publication. Pluidze could not be reached either.
Leffler attended Thomas More College before transferring to NKU where he played for the university's club team. He graduated from NKU in 2021.
His family said he was beloved in the community. More than 3000 people from across Ohio and Kentucky attended the 25-year-old's funeral.
"If somebody kills somebody and they're driving a truck, should they not have responsibility? Should there not be an action that is greater than a common car accident?" said Joe Leffler. "This has to change. This has to change."
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