Waltham crash suspect Peter Simon had lengthy criminal record before fatal hit-and-run

Peter Simon, the New Hampshire man accused of striking and killing a Waltham police officer and National Grid worker at a detail site, had been in legal trouble more than once prior to Wednesday’s incident, according to reports. In fact, Simon, a former resident of Brattleboro, Vt., fled from police before crashing head on into a public transportation bus in Keene, N.H. The August 2009 incident led to Simon being charged with several felonies and sentenced in 2011 to five years in a psychiatric unit in Hampshire State Prison in Concord.

Simon and the driver of the bus suffered minor injuries in the crash, while a passenger in the bus suffered injuries and was airlifted to a hospital, the Brattleboro Reporter reported at the time. Simon’s sentence was later terminated in November 2015. Simon suffered from a “dissociative disorder” and a history of panic attacks, Cheshire County Attorney Peter Heed said at the time.

“He feels very badly about the injured person,” Simon’s attorney Michael Hulser told the Brattleboro Reporter. “He honestly and seriously does not want this to happen again. I believe him.” Before the 2009 incident, police arrested Simon, now 54, of Woodsville, N.H., a handful of times, in Massachusetts and as far away as Olympia, Wash., according to WCVB.

In 1996, Simon faced a warrant out of Wareham District Court for possession of a hypodermic needle.

Three years later, Simon was convicted in Washington for third-degree assault, Channel 5 reported Thursday.

More recently, Simon was charged with criminal threatening, driving under the influence and disobeying an officer related to a 2016 case out of Franklin, N.H., the news station reported.