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Press Release

Trucking Company Owner Admits to Falsifying Driver Records

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Rhode Island
Altered records provided to investigators of a fatal crash of a company driver

PROVIDENCE – The owner of a now defunct Woonsocket commercial trucking company admitted to a federal court judge in Providence that he altered thousands of electronic entries in service logbooks for approximately 20 drivers in order to conceal the actual drive time and “on-duty” time of drivers.

U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) regulations, enforced by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), a division of the USDOT, require accurate record keeping and operational requirements, including records related to drivers’ actual hours of service.

Damir Sisic, 29, of Woonsocket, owner of the now defunct Sisic Transport Service LLC (STS), admitted that he routinely altered data collected by onboard electronic data gathering devices installed in his trucks that reflected the actual number of hours his drivers operated the vehicles.

Sisic owned approximately eleven commercial truck tractors and ten box-style commercial trailers, and employed between seven and ten drivers at a time. Each vehicle was equipped with an electronic device that recorded the location of each truck, and the start and stop time of each vehicle. Sisic admitted that he accessed and altered that data on thousands of occasions. He admitted that he routinely concealed from the USDOT and FMCSA that his drivers were routinely exceeding the maximum number of driving hours and “on-duty” hours without the required off-duty hours, in violation of federal law.

According to court documents, Sisic provided altered driving records to a State Trooper investigating the fatality of an STS driver who was driving an STS truck that occurred in Oklahoma on April 22, 2018. In addition, Sisic provided altered driving records for numerous STS drivers to an FMCSA investigator during a compliance review.

Sisic pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Providence to conspiracy to falsify records, announced United States Attorney Aaron L. Weisman and Special Agent in Charge Douglas Shoemaker, U.S. Department of Transportation, Office of Inspector General, Office of Investigations, Northeast Region.

Sisic is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Mary S. McElroy on January 7, 2021.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ly T. Chin.

 

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Contact

Jim Martin
(401) 709-5357

Updated October 28, 2020

Press Release Number: 20-136