Sixty-three year-old Kevin Custer, a commercial truck driver from Swansea, Mass., never had so much as a traffic ticket before he failed to slow his tractor-trailer for stopped traffic in the southbound lanes on Interstate 95 in Waterford three years ago and caused a seven-vehicle collision that resulted in the death of a 33-year-old dentist.

Custer was not intoxicated and showed police his phone in the aftermath of the crash to prove he hadn't been texting or talking to anybody, according to prosecutor Sarah E. Steere. He told police he was driving about 50 mph when he saw stopped traffic near exit 82 and applied his brakes. He said he felt the truck slow down, but it didn't stop on time. 

On Monday, he stood before Judge Ernest Green Jr. in New London Superior Court and pleaded no contest to misconduct with a motor vehicle, a felony. The judge imposed a fully suspended five-year prison sentence followed by two years of probation. Custer will be responsible for any remaining expenses to the victims after civil lawsuits are resolved. He is prohibited from having a commercial driver's license while on probation and must perform a total of 120 hours of community service.

Custer looked to his lawyer, Bryan P. Fiengo, for guidance each time the judge asked him a question to ensure Custer understood the court proceedings. He chose not to speak, but instead had Fiengo read a letter of apology to the husband of Saumya Arora of New York City, who died in the crash.

Custer said in the letter that he thinks about the accident every day and is "so, so, sorry." He said he had driven trucks for 20 years and underwent medical testing regularly to ensure he was healthy enough to drive. Since the accident, he said he hasn't been able to drive commercially and hardly drives at all except around town.

He was hauling frozen food for Seekonk, Mass.-based Pray Trucking at the time of the crash.

"I can say he is tremendously despondent over what occurred," Fiengo said. "It's a horrible, regretful accident."

The crash occurred shortly before 9:30 p.m. on a Sunday, when cars had slowed to a near stop due to an earlier wreck, also involving a involving a tractor-trailer, that had resulted in the deaths of two young children and one of their fathers, who was 26.

State police said that despite electronic signs warning of the hazard ahead and a clear line of sight, Custer's truck slammed into the back of a 2008 BMW, causing it to spin into the left lane and against the jersey barrier. By the time police arrived, the passenger, Arora, was in cardiac arrest. She was taken to Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, where doctors were able to regain her pulse, then transferred her to Yale New Haven Hospital, where she died four days later of craniocervical dislocation.

Police said the tractor-trailer continued in the right travel lane, striking another passenger car and a Dodge Ram pickup truck. The pickup pushed into the rear of another Dodge Ram pickup, pushing the second pickup truck into a sport utility vehicle, which in turn struck another car.

Five people were injured, including one person who suffered a broken nose, whiplash and contusions, according to Victim Services Advocate LeeAnn Vertefeuille.

The victim advocate read aloud an impact statement from Arora's husband, Vikram Dhawan, a physician to whom she had been married for just a year. Dhawan wrote that he and his wife, "a budding dentist," were planning their future and contemplating a move to Boston as they drove home to New York that night.

They were stuck in traffic that had come to a standstill, but were unaware that their lives were about to take a 180-degree turn, he wrote. He regained consciousness after the crash, but his wife was in a coma for three days until she finally took her last breath. Her loss has taken a "massive toll" on him and her family and left "a vacuum that can never be filled," the husband wrote.

Dhawan wrote that he didn't want "revenge" from Custer, whom he never met and whom he understands is a grandfather. He said he that he hoped Custer would get "a little" prison time, community service and a fine.

In light of Custer's age, lack of a criminal record and remorse, Judge Kevin P. McMahon had proposed the suspended prison sentence with probation and community service during pretrial negotiations with the prosecution and defense.

McMahon was off on Monday, and Judge Green imposed the sentence in his absence. Green said the sentence brings the court case to a close, but that, "There is still much healing to be done by all the parties."

k.florin@theday.com