This morning, Maine State Police announced that they arrested a truck driver who reportedly avoided tolls on the Turnpike for years — and that their investigation revealed several other serious violations.
Sixty one year old truck driver Danny Olson was arrested yesterday and charged with felony theft of services, along with falsifying his log book as he had not taken a proper rest in 5 days, failing to retain his previous log books, illegal attachment of registration plates, unauthorized taking of registration plates, and failing or neglecting to pay tolls. His truck was also placed out of service and impounded because of two imminent safety violations.
According to a report from the Maine State Police:
“In April 2018 the Commercial Vehicle Unit was tasked with identifying a subject who over the previous 6 or more years had been travelling on the Maine Turnpike between Augusta and Kittery without paying tolls in a tractor trailer truck. The suspect was avoiding the tolls by illegally attaching license plates not belonging to him, his truck or trailer and had racked up over $1300 in unpaid tolls in Maine and was also suspected of accumulating thousands more in unpaid tolls other northeast states. One of the license plates belonged to a subject who was deceased and another belonged to a local subject who was not involved in the thefts. Over the course of the previous month Cpl. Rogers and Tr. Degroot were able to identify a suspect in the thefts as Danny Olson (61) of Turner, owner of Olson Transportation and a long haul truck driver.
On the afternoon of May 17th Cpl. Rogers, Tr. Degroot, and Sgt. Bergquist intercepted Olson shortly after he entered Maine from New Hampshire. Olson was found to be in possession of the illegal registration plates at the time of the traffic stop. Olson was found to be an owner operator driving for K&E Transport of West Newfield, ME. Olson was transported to the Androscoggin County Jail and charged…“
Olson was held on overnight on a $2500 bond, but he has since been released.
Maine troopers say that they’ll be coordinating with other law enforcement agencies to determine whether Olson was committing toll violations in other states.