Feb. 09--A May 15 trial has been scheduled for a Cambridge man accused of motor vehicle homicide in the death of a state trooper he crashed into a decade ago on Route 25 in Wareham.
William P. Senne, 28, was on his way to Cape Cod from Wayland at the time of the early morning crash, which left Trooper Ellen Engelhardt in a coma and later in a specialized care facility with a traumatic brain injury. She died June 1, 2011.
Senne, who was 18 at the time of the July 2003 crash, already served 2 1/2 years in jail after pleading guilty in 2005 to drunken driving and other charges in connection with the crash. He was released from jail in 2007.
Since being released, Senne has earned a bachelor's degree in economics and established a real estate business in Cambridge.
Engelhardt was well-known on Cape Cod, where she often directed traffic at the Exit 7 ramp off Route 6. The interchange was named in her honor in 2009.
Senne was arraigned in September 2011 on the new charge of motor vehicle homicide while operating under the influence and operating negligently based on Engelhardt's death. Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz contends that the injuries she suffered in the crash led directly to her death.
"In any motor vehicle homicide, you'd have to have that causation," Plymouth County Assistant District Attorney Russ Eonas said Friday.
Eonas could not say whether the district attorney's office had prosecuted any cases under similar circumstances. "I'm not in a position to comment on any of the facts of the case."
The trial date was set in the case on Wednesday, Eonas said.
Senne faces a possibility of up to 15 years in prison if found guilty on the new charge.
Senne's Quincy-based attorney, Daniel O'Malley, did not return a phone message seeking comment on the case. Senne declined to comment when reached by telephone Friday.
In a story that ran in The Boston Globe last month, Senne said he was unaware he could be tried again after pleading guilty to the lesser charges related to the crash.
The concept of double jeopardy, which bars someone who has been acquitted or convicted from being tried again on the same charge, does not appear to apply in this case because the motor vehicle homicide charge is not the same as the drunken-driving charge to which Senne pleaded guilty in 2005.
"There were obviously never any promises," Cruz said during a television interview after the trial date was set. "As a matter of a fact, he filed a motion to dismiss, which alleges some sort of implied promise which never existed, and that motion was denied by the Superior Court judge."
Senne's family owned property on Bassetts Island in Bourne until 2007, when it was sold to help pay legal bills and other expenses.
Engelhardt's father was a Boston police officer, and she had wanted to join the FBI before becoming one of the first female state troopers in 1981, her daughter, Lora Tedeman, told the Times during a 2006 visit to the care facility where her mother was living.
She worked the midnight to 8 a.m. shift out of the South Yarmouth state police barracks for much of her career so she could enjoy the sunshine, Tedeman told the Times.
Engelhardt was the first female Massachusetts trooper to die in the line of duty. State police dedicated a mobile unit to her in 2007 that allows troopers to more quickly process impaired drivers.
Copyright 2013 - Cape Cod Times, Hyannis, Mass.
