A Minnesota truck driver was allegedly on a sex site just before rear-ending multiple cars, including an SUV containing a pregnant mother and three young children. The mother’s unborn child was killed as a result of the crash.
Joel Adam Sassmann, 52, was charged with criminal vehicular operation causing the death of an unborn child in connection with the August 2023 crash in Rice County, Minn.
In a probable cause statement obtained by PEOPLE, authorities allege that Sassmann’s truck rear-ended a Chevrolet Suburban, which pushed into a Ford Escape that subsequently struck a Honda Accord, which was pushed into a ditch, while the Escape struck a Volvo SUV, which then hit a second Escape.
In the front passenger seat of the Suburban was a mother who was 31 weeks pregnant, while three young children were in the backseat. The mother, identified as Kaitlyn Herbert in a Minnesota State Police incident report, was taken to the hospital, where an emergency C-section was performed, according to the probable cause statement. The unborn baby died of blunt force trauma, authorities said.
Prior to the crash, authorities alleged that Sassmann had been searching a sex site and sending online messages.
“The defendant also did not have his full attention dedicated to the act of driving his vehicle,” authorities said in the probable cause statement. “There is evidence of the defendant accessing websites and sending messages on his cellular phone shortly before the collision. If the defendant [had] been alert to the slowed traffic, then he could have safely slowed his vehicle and this collision does not occur.”
Investigators allegedly found that leading up to the crash, Sassmann sent eight sex chats, made several searches on a sex website, sent a message to a woman on Instagram and changed the orientation on his phone to landscape five times, among other actions, according to the probable cause statement.
Sassmann is scheduled to appear in court in December and has not yet entered a plea.
Prosecutors say Herbert’s three children, aged 1, 3 and 4, were all hospitalized after the crash, as was the driver of the vehicle.
According to a GoFundMe, Herbert’s 4-year-old son suffered scratches and bruises, while her 1-year-old son received staples in his head. Her daughter, 3, broke her leg in the crash. The GoFundMe has raised nearly $70,000.
