Trucker Bail set at $600,000

A superior court judge lowered the bail earlier this morning for a trucker who was involved in a multi-car wreck on Angeles Crest Highway, killing a Palmdale girl and her father, according to sources.

Marcos Barbosa Costa’s bail was reduced from about $2.1 million to $600,000 by Judge Lisa B. Lench in a Pasadena courtroom. The earlier bail amount was set when Costa was indicted by a grand jury indictment, it was announced.

Costa, 44, was originally released on $200,000 bail, but was taken back into custody in mid-June. That amount was set on April 3, when Costa was charged with vehicular manslaughter for his role in the deaths 12-year-old Angelina Posca and her 58-year-old father Angel Jorge Posca on April 1. He also allegedly injured three others that day.

However, Costa’s bail was increased more than tenfold when a grand jury indicted him on two counts of murder and three counts of reckless driving.

If bail is posted, Costa will be confined to staying in Los Angeles or Orange County and subject to electronic monitoring, his attorney told the media. Costa must also surrender his driver’s license.

The 44-year-old trucker and Brazilian national who lives in Boston is on trial after his double-decker hauling rig lost its brakes and careened out of control down Angeles Crest Highway just above Foothill Freeway.

According to authorities who responded to the incident on April 1, Costa apparently struck the Poscas’ vehicle near Interstate 210 shortly before crashing into four other vehicles and a coffee shop near the intersection of Angeles Crest Highway and Foothill Blvd.

The collision was not the first major incident involving a large vehicle at or near the intersection. On Sept. 5, 2008, a truck carrying 70,000 pounds of onions injured one person when it slammed into seven cars in the Hill Street Café parking lot after struggling to stop at the same intersection in La Canada.

After the April1 collision, the California Department of Transportation placed a 90-day ban on all five-axle trucks along Angeles Crest Highway between Angeles Forest Highway and I-210.