The judge set a formal sentencing date of Sept. 18.
AUSTIN, Texas — The truck driver accused of causing a deadly Hays CISD bus crash in Bastrop County last spring has accepted a plea deal.
Jerry Hernandez entered a guilty plea on manslaughter charges and faces 18 years in prison.
Hernandez showed up in court on Monday for what was supposed to be a pre-trail hearing but took a turn.
In March 2024, prosecutors say Hernandez was driving a concrete pumper truck that swerved into a Hays CISD bus on State Highway 21. That bus was carrying Tom Green Elementary School students home from a field trip at the Bastrop Zoo.
Five-year-old Ulises Rodriguez Montoya, who was on the bus, and 33-year-old Ryan Wallace, a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin who was driving behind it, both died.
Hernandez was indicted on two charges of manslaughter and two charges of criminally negligent homicide.
On Monday, he pleaded guilty to both counts of manslaughter, each 18 years, and the state moved to dismiss the other charges. Those sentences are set to run concurrently. The judge scheduled a formal sentencing date of Sept. 18.
According to court documents, FJM Concrete LLC, the company that operates the truck Hernandez was driving didn’t finish a full background check on him. Those documents also revealed that Hernandez admitted to using marijuana the night before the crash, cocaine the morning of and only driving on three hours of sleep.
FJM Concrete faces multiple civil lawsuits connected to the crash. The families of multiple preschool students and teachers who were on the bus are all seeking payments, but their attorneys are concerned that because the law only required FJM to have $500,000 in insurance coverage, there won’t be enough money to help all the victims.
Attorney Joshua Harrison, who represented the family of an injured child, emphasized the need for there to be higher liability insurance on these commercial vehicles.
“When you have multiple parties injured and in situations of loss of life like this one, the policy limits of that insurance covers, the liability policy, can be exhausted quite quickly,” Harrison said. “And in order for us to make sure that our clients have that fair compensation, I do believe that mandating higher policy limits for these commercial vehicles is a must. It’s essential.”