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 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. They say Zambenedetti showed up in his own car and they then dumped 5-gallon buckets of water onto the road to create black ice.
Police say it took a half-ton of salt to melt the ice and make the road passable.
