AUSTINTOWN TWP., Ohio - A New Jersey trucker has pleaded “not guilty” to a charge filed after State Troopers say his tractor-trailer crossed into the oncoming lanes of Interstate 80 in Austintown, plowing into a pickup truck, killing the driver.

Fifty-three-year-old Davit Pluidze appeared before a judge in Austintown Monday to answer two counts of vehicular homicide filed last week.

According to the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Pluidze was driving a tractor-trailer east on the morning of December 5 when it crashed through the median barrier and ran into a Ram pickup coming in the opposite lanes.

The pickup struck a guardrail, ejecting the driver, 25-year-old Zackery Leffler of Burlington, Kentucky. Leffler was killed in the crash, which snarled traffic along the interstate.

The tractor-trailer rolled over an embankment

Pluidze has another court hearing set for May 6.