McAllen, Texas – The owner of the bus that exploded during the Hurricane Rita evacuation, killing 23 elderly evacuees, was sentenced Wednesday to five years of probation for mismanaging his fleet.
As part of his probation, a judge ruled, Global Limo Inc. owner James Maples can no longer work for any bus company. He will be confined for the first year – six months in a halfway house and six months at home.
Maples was acquitted Oct. 3 of the most serious charge of conspiring to falsify driver time logs so drivers could work longer than federal law allows. He was convicted of the two lesser allegations, of poorly managing his fleet and not requiring drivers to fill out vehicle inspection reports.
Global Limo was fined $100,000 and placed on probation for five years.
The sentences stemmed from a trial about management of the bus fleet and vehicle inspections and not the 2005 explosion, which occurred on a bus carrying Houston-area nursing home patients away from the approaching storm.
A federal investigation of the explosion determined that poorly lubricated wheel bearings overheated in the right rear well, igniting a tire. The patients’ oxygen tanks exploded as the flames engulfed the bus.
Fourteen people survived.
Victims and their relatives reached an $11 million settlement in May with Global Limo and BusBank, the travel broker that hired it.
Maples, who played for the NFL’s Baltimore Colts in 1963, worked more than 20 years in the bus business, operating companies under several names. In the months since the trial, he has been working for a bus tour company owned by a friend.
Maples declined to speak in court, with his attorney telling U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa that Maples faced pending litigation.
