STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Linden Police Officer Pedro Abad, the driver in a fatal wrong-way crash on the West Shore Expressway, escaped from previous drunk-driving charges in New Jersey because evidence wasn't provided to his attorney, according to NJ.com.

The charges filed against Abad for a Jan. 22, 2011, accident in which a car he was driving careened through the wall of a store in Roselle, were dismissed nearly a year later because New Jersey State Police reports about blood-alcohol testing, tapes of police transmissions and other crucial evidence wasn't supplied to Abad's defense attorney.

Municipal Court Judge Carl Marshall, who had ordered that the evidence be turned over to the defense, said he had no alternative but to dismiss the case, according to the Advance sister website NJ.com.

Abad was driving in the wrong direction on the West Shore Expressway in the accident that claimed the lives of passengers Linden Police Officer Frank Viggiano and lifelong Linden resident Joseph Rodriguez, both 28. Abad and another passenger, Linden Police Officer Patrik Kudlac, 23, were critically injured.