Midnight Rider director Randall Miller pleads guilty in death of camera assistant

The director of a movie about musician Gregg Allman pleaded guilty Monday in a train crash that killed a camera assistant and injured six film workers, and prosecutors in exchange dropped charges against his wife and business partner.  

The case is a rare example of filmmakers being prosecuted for deaths on their sets. Furthermore, the death of Sarah Jones, 27, galvanized behind-the-scenes film workers nationwide to push for improved safety standards on sets.

Freight train plowed into crew

As part of the plea deal, director Randall Miller will spend two years in the county jail and another eight on probation on involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespassing charges. He also will pay a $20,000 US fine.  

Miller's wife and business partner, Jody Savin, will no longer face the same charges.

A third defendant, executive producer Jay Sedrish, also pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and criminal trespassing on Monday but avoided jail time. He will be allowed to serve 10 years of probation from his home in California.

In the crash a year ago, a freight train travelling 55 mph (89 kph) plowed into the director's crew on a Georgia railroad bridge. 

CSX Transportation, the railroad company that owns the bridge where the crash occurred, has said it twice denied the filmmakers permission to shoot footage on its tracks in rural southeast Georgia. Under state law, someone can be convicted of involuntary manslaughter for committing a misdemeanor —in this case trespassing— that unintentionally causes another person to be killed.

1st day of filming

​​It was the first day of shooting on Midnight Rider when Miller and his crew stepped onto the railroad bridge spanning the Altamaha River on Feb. 20, 2014. Actor William Hurt was on the set in his role as the Allman Brothers Band singer in his later years. A metal-framed bed was pulled across the tracks as a prop. When the train struck, it smashed the bed and hurled metal fragments at the fleeing crew. 

The train struck and killed Jones, a young camera assistant from Atlanta who had worked on TV series including Army Wives and The Vampire Diaries.

A sobbing Miller called Jones' parents to tell them she was dead. The director, whose previous films included Bottle Shock and CBGB, testified last May in a related civil case that he had been told only two trains a day crossed the bridge and he only set out with his crew onto the trestle after a pair of trains had passed. Asked if the crew had obtained permission from the railroad to film on its tracks, Miller said that wasn't his job. But he bristled at the suggestion he recklessly put his crew in danger.

"I was in the middle of the track and I almost died," Miller said in civil court May 12.

The Midnight Rider movie has been in limbo since the crash. Allman sued Miller to prevent the director from reviving the film. They settled out of court last year, and terms were not disclosed.