By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

A logging truck driver charged Monday with drunken driving and operating after suspension in Norway had duped his employer into believing he could legally drive the big rig.

Kathy Day, vice president of Wm. A. Day & Sons Inc. of Porter, said Tuesday morning that Vaughn A. Hardesty Jr., 41, of Windham, had worked for her husband’s company since December. He was fired Tuesday.

Hardesty had provided her with a copy of a valid Maine driver’s license, his birth date and other information, she said. She in turn forwarded the information to the company’s insurance provider.

The insurance firm did a background check but failed to turn up Hardesty’s 19 previous traffic convictions or the fact that his driver’s license has been suspended since 1999.

“He must have slipped through the system,” Day said. “He fell through the cracks.”

Trucking firms such as Day’s have been on high alert for bad drivers after a fatal accident in July on the Maine Turnpike. The trucker involved in that crash, Scott Hewitt, then 40, of Caribou, was driving despite multiple license suspensions. Hewitt has been charged with manslaughter and driving-related violations.

Maine’s Legislature has since advanced a bill intended to curb the state’s worst drivers. It would set minimum mandatory sentences for drivers who operate after suspension.

The measure is dubbed “Tina’s Law” in memory of Tina Turcotte, the woman who died when Hewitt’s rig plowed into her car.

Norway and state police say Hardesty was drunk and driving after his license had been suspended when he was arrested Monday on that town’s main drag.

He’s to make an initial court appearance this morning at 11th District Court in Paris. Hardesty is charged with operating under the influence, operating after suspension, driving to endanger and with a probation violation.

He’s being held without bail at the Oxford County Jail in Paris.

State police have issued a summons to him charging him with additional commercial driving violations that include operating after being disqualified as a driver, operating with an unsecured load and driving a commercial vehicle with a detectable presence of alcohol.

Hardesty refused to take a breath test aimed at determining his blood alcohol level. Norway police Officer Duffy Ellsworth, who assisted police Chief Rob Federico in stopping and arresting the driver, said Hardesty’s breath smelled of alcohol and that two bottles of vodka – one empty and one half empty – were found in the cab of truck.

Day said Hardesty was hauling a load of pulp to a NewPage paper mill facility. She thought the load was to be dropped off in West Paris.

She said her company’s drivers do a safety check on their rigs at the yard before heading out on the road. Once they’re driving, though, they operate without any direct supervision.

Police impounded the truck after Hardesty was arrested. Police pulled him over after seeing him weave the 97,000-pound, 26-wheel rig through downtown.

The company retrieved the rig from where it had been towed in Auburn on Tuesday morning, Day said. While the company doesn’t face charges related the incident, it still had to pay towing and impound fees to get the truck and trailer back, Day noted.

She said her company prides itself on its safety record and in hiring safe drivers. “This has never happened before.”

“I do not have a clue” how Hardesty managed to get past the insurance company’s driver background checks, she said.

On Tuesday morning, her husband called the company that Hardesty worked for before joining Day’s business. “They didn’t know about the suspension either,” she said.

“It’s very upsetting,” Day added. “You just can’t do that. That’s so very bad.”