Driver who fell asleep hit and killed motorcyclist near Lake Tapps, charges say
A man caused a fatal wreck when he fell asleep at the wheel and hit a motorcyclist near Lake Tapps earlier this year, according to charging papers.
Joshua James Bogard, 38, is scheduled to be arraigned later this year.
Prosecutors charged him with vehicular homicide and vehicular assault Wednesday in connection to the May 12 wreck that killed Henry Pineda and injured another person.
Court records identified Pineda as the motorcyclist who died, though the Medical Examiner’s Office has not formally released his information.
Charging papers made these allegations about what happened:
Bogard was sleep deprived as he drove home from work and drifted into oncoming traffic near South Tapps Drive East and 175th Avenue Court East.
He hit Pineda’s motorcycle head-on, and Pineda died at Tacoma General Hospital.
The passenger on the motorcycle suffered serious injuries.
Bogard had been on his two-hour commute home.
He allegedly said he suffered from chronic back pain and had only been sleeping about four or five hours a night and that he hadn’t had alcohol or drugs — except for a prescription that his doctor told him was safe to drive with.
A sheriff’s deputy who spoke with him found “that Bogard had exercised extreme disregard for the safety of others when he knowingly drove a vehicle a long distance while very sleep deprived after having worked a full day,” the declaration for determination of probable cause said.
Investigators determined he was going 39 miles per hour at the time of the crash. The speed limit in the area is 35 mph, according to public records.
