Cassidy Charette, 17, of Oakland died from head injuries in an accident at a Halloween-themed hayride Saturday night, Oct. 11, 2014, in Mechanic Falls. Investigators said a mechanical problem caused a Jeep towing the wagon full of passengers she was riding in to lurch down a steep hill and slam into a tree.
The family of the Oakland 17-year-old girl killed in a Mechanic Falls hayride accident in 2014 has settled a wrongful death lawsuit.
Cassidy Charette was killed when the haunted hayride at Harvest Hill Farm overturned. More than a dozen other people were injured when the wagon flipped.
The family brought a wrongful death lawsuit against Harvest Hill Farm former owner Peter Bolduc Jr., the hayride driver, David Brown, and mechanic Philip Theberge. The settlement amount wasn’t disclosed Wednesday in a statement Wednesday morning by Jodi Nofsinger, the family’s attorney.
Nofsinger says the money from the settlement will support the ShineOnCass Foundation — a charity they established in honor of Cassidy.
In mid-November, th Mechanic Falls business pleaded guilty to a felony charge in the 2014 hayride crash.
Bolduc pleaded guilty on behalf of his business to a charge of driving to endanger, bringing to a close the final chapter in a long string of prosecutions connected to the incident.
Harvest Hill Farm was ordered to pay a $7,500 fine for the Oct. 11, 2014, crash.
Other criminal cases connected to the tragic hayride were also wrapped up in 2016.
In October, prosecutors dismissed a sole charge of reckless conduct against the farm’s mechanic, Philip Theberge, 39, of Norway.
In September, David Brown of South Paris, who drove the Jeep in the fatal hayride accident at Harvest Hill Farm, was found not guilty of reckless conduct by a Sagadahoc County Superior Court jury.
This story will be updated.
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