A man who police say poured water onto a freezing road to try to fool police officers into thinking the cause of his drunken car crash was black ice has pleaded not guilty.
The NJ Herald reports that 20-year-old Brian Byers, of Sparta, pleaded not guilty to disorderly conduct charges before Municipal Court Judge James Devine Thursday.
Co-defendant Alexander Zambenedetti pleaded not guilty to driving while intoxicated, careless driving and failure to wear a seat belt.
Police say Byers hit a guardrail after running a stop sign in a BMW early Saturday morning and then drove his car home. He then returned to the scene with Zambenedetti, and the two dumped 5-gallon buckets of ice on the road to create black ice.
They were arrested after an officer on patrol saw Zambenedetti standing outside the car without a shirt on in frigid, 1-degree temperatures.
Police say it took a half-ton of salt to melt the ice and make the road passable.
