Great Bend ? A Barton County deputy was acquitted of misdemeanor vehicular homicide in a Labor Day 2003 crash that left a motorcyclist dead.

Deputy David Paden, a 13-year veteran of the Barton County Sheriff’s department, has been involved in three other accidents. One of those accidents also involved a fatality.

The crash that led to the charges happened when Paden made a U-turn to join a police chase on U.S. Highway 281.

Senior Judge William Lyle announced the verdict in a written ruling issued late Wednesday. Lyle, who presided over the bench trial, found Paden guilty of making an unsafe U-turn and improper window tinting.

“I’m glad everything took its course and followed the judicial system we all live by,” Barton County Sheriff Buck Causey said. “I hope everyone can accept the verdict and move forward in a positive direction … I really want the wounds that are there to be healed.”

During the trial, Paden testified he pulled over to the side of the road and checked his rearview mirror twice before making the U-turn. The Harley-Davidson driven by Brian K. Frenzl, 40, of Great Bend, slammed into the left front of Paden’s patrol car, and Frenzl cartwheeled 168 feet before coming to rest on the opposite shoulder of the road.

“The court cannot find that defendant’s actions in this accident meet the standard of a material deviation necessary to find him guilty of vehicular homicide,” Lyle wrote in the court order.

Paden was involved in two other accidents before the Labor Day accident and a third one after it. In one of the accidents, a 16-year-old boy was killed when his truck hit a telephone pole during a chase that Paden initiated. Paden was taken off the road and given other duties after the fourth accident.

Causey said he would sit down and talk with his deputy about his future now that a verdict has been reached.