Trucker Charged with Murder for Crash

Pasadena (myFOXla.com) - A grand jury indictment unsealed on Friday charges a trucker with murder and other counts stemming from a multi-vehicle wreck on Angeles Crest Highway that killed a 12-year-old Palmdale girl and her father.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg ordered Marcos Barbosa Costa -- who pleaded not guilty to the charges -- to remain jailed in lieu of $2.09 million bail.

You can watch Chris Blatchford's report in the video player.

The 44-year-old long-haul trucker is scheduled to appear next Wednesday in Pasadena Superior Court for a bail-review hearing. According to his attorney, Costa is a Brazilian national and legal U.S. resident who lives in the Boston area.

The indictment, which was handed up June 11 and unsealed after Costa's arraignment, charges him with two counts each of murder and vehicular manslaughter in the April 1 deaths of Angelina Posca and her 58-year-old father, Angel Jorge Posca.

The indictment also charges Costa with three counts of reckless driving causing injury to three other people. Two of them had concussions and one suffered a bone fracture, according to the District Attorney's Office.

The only new counts in the indictment were the two murder charges. Costa had been awaiting a hearing to determine if there was enough evidence to require him to stand trial for vehicular manslaughter and reckless driving -- a case that is now expected to be dismissed.

Outside court, defense attorney Steve Meister told reporters that the murder charges signal that "the district attorney of Los Angeles County continues to confuse tragedy with a crime."

"Because we all know that just because someone tragically dies, it's not a murder, and this case isn't a murder. It never was," Meister said. "When you bring murder charges in a case that shouldn't be charged as a criminal case at all, it stops being a prosecution. It starts being a lynch mob, and that's what this became today, and I'm not going to let it happen."

Costa's attorney told reporters that he and his client were stunned by his arrest in connection with the grand jury indictment and the news that he was facing murder charges.

Costa had been free on $200,000 bail in connection with the earlier case -- and Meister unsuccessfully tried to convince the judge to allow it to stand.

Yanette Posca, whose husband and daughter were killed in the crash, held photos of her loved ones before the indictment was unsealed.

In a statement released by their attorneys shortly after the indictment was unsealed, the victims' family said the deaths of a "loving father" and a "loving young daughter and sister" have "left a tremendous hole in our family."

"We are pleased that our system of justice is beginning to hold accountable the various parties responsible for this tragic incident. We understand that the driver will be held accountable for his own actions. We also understand that, like in many other things, the driver is only one factor that caused this tragic incident," the family's statement said.

The Posca family noted that they have "followed with interest the various claims made by the city of La Canada against the state of California, and their response, as to their respective roles in this particular incident."

The Poscas' car was struck near the Foothill (210) Freeway by the double- decker car-hauling rig, which had lost its brakes and careened down Angeles Crest Highway.

The truck pushed the car about 200 yards into the intersection of Foothill Boulevard, where four other vehicles were struck before the truck smashed into a coffee shop and book store.

In the aftermath of the crash, La Canada Flintridge city officials lashed out at Caltrans, contending the state agency had failed to respond to their concerns about safety on the highway.

The city had first appealed to the state for changes on the route after a crash last Sept. 5, in which a truck carrying 70,000 pounds of onions plowed through the same intersection and into the parking lot of the Hill Street Cafe, demolishing seven vehicles but causing only one minor injury.

In response to the uproar over the April 1 crash, Caltrans instituted a 90-day ban on five-axle trucks along Angeles Crest Highway between the Angeles Forest Highway and the 210 Freeway.