Police saw fake-sticker sale before arrest

When state police arrived at a Philadelphia garage Tuesday to arrest the owner on charges of issuing a false inspection sticker for a truck in a fatal accident, they saw another truck pulling away with an invalid sticker, police said yesterday.

Troopers said they had watched a truck cab drive into Pratt Auto Repair on 2224 Granite St. and decided to wait and see what transpired before they went in.

"Twenty minutes later, the tractor pulled out with two new stickers," said State Police Lt. Anthony Sivo, patrol section commander for the Philadelphia Barracks.

Sivo said police had followed the truck and stopped it several blocks away.

After an inspection, police said, they found four deficiencies, including a cracked, right-front brake drum. The driver, who was not identified, told investigators that he had paid $100 for the stickers, Sivo said.

Because the investigation was incomplete, police would not provide further details.

Later, police returned to the garage and arrested its owner, Joseph Jadczak, in connection with a fatal accident on I-76 on Jan. 23 involving a truck for which he was accused of issuing an invalid inspection sticker. Montgomery County officials charged him and two others with vehicular homicide.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said Jadczak had sold the sticker used on a truck whose brakes failed and plowed into a line of cars stopped on the Schuylkill Expressway. David Schreffler, 49, of Fort Washington, was killed.

An e-mail sent yesterday by Schreffler family attorney Peter M. Villari said, "It is most sad that this terrible tragedy could have been avoided, and we are grateful that the authorities are taking appropriate action."

On Tuesday, state police said they were asking that all 300 trucks inspected at Pratt be reinspected. Three hundred rigs are involved.

Sivo said there was no way of knowing how widespread the use of false inspection stickers is.

"With the society we live in, we're not going to get 100 percent perfection," he said.

State police reported pulling over 67,584 trucks in 2008 to look for safety problems. Troopers issued 34,000 citations for all kinds of violations and handed out 91,000 warnings, Sivo said.

There are 17,000 inspection stations in the state, said the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, which oversees the state inspection process.

"Does fraud occur? Yes. Is it widespread? No," said Danielle Klinger, a PennDOT spokeswoman in Harrisburg.

If PennDOT authorities hear of a station that has infractions, they can issue a warning letter, suspend the station's license, or terminate the license.

"It's a minimal number each year," Klinger said.

No one answered the phone late yesterday at Pratt Auto Repair.

State police and Montgomery County investigators said they believed that issuing inspection stickers without conducting the required safety inspection was at the heart of their case against Jadczak, 61, of Milton, Del.

On Jan. 28, troopers seized inspection records from the garage, according to an affidavit of probable cause detailing their allegations.

They found that on Dec. 2, a mechanic recorded as "Joe J" reported inspecting the truck in the fatal crash, the document said. The brakes were reported to be safe, according to the inspection report.

But they weren't, and they failed, the affidavit said.

"The mileage indicates that this truck tractor was never inspected," the document said.

The affidavit concluded that had Jadczak conducted an inspection, he would have flagged the faulty brakes, and the truck would "not have been permitted to operate on the highway."