Beloit trucker gets prison for NC crash that killed 5

A truck driver from Beloit could spend up to five years in prison after pleading guilty to ramming his rig into a line of stopped traffic on a North Carolina interstate and killing five people.

Roumen Todorov Velkov of Beloit, Wis., pleaded guilty Friday to five counts of involuntary manslaughter in the October 2010 crash on Interstate 26. Three victims were from the Hendersonville area and two from Lexington, S.C.

A judge sentenced the 50-year-old Bulgarian immigrant to between 48 months and 60 months in prison.

Authorities said Velkov was headed east on I-26 in mountainous Henderson County when his tractor-trailer plowed into a line of cars stopped by another accident. Investigators said they found the truck’s speedometer stuck at 70 mph.

A state trooper attributed the accident to driver fatigue.