The Plymouth district attorney’s office asked a judge Tuesday to deny a request for information about issues with Toyota accelerators made by a man charged with crashing his Toyota 4Runner into an Apple Store in Hingham in 2022, killing a worker and injuring nearly two dozen other people.
Bradley E. Rein, 55, asked a judge in late April to issue a subpoena to Herb Chambers Toyota of Boston for records of all customer complaints of “unintended acceleration” for Toyota models between 2015 and 2022, alleging that faulty artificial intelligence features in the SUV “took control of the vehicle and caused” the crash, court documents show.
Rein’s lawyer, Joan M. Fund, said the records were “necessary for the adequate defense of this case.” Fund could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.
Rein has pleaded not guilty in Plymouth Superior Court to 25 criminal charges in the crash, which killed construction worker Kevin Bradley, including second-degree murder, motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, assault and battery causing serious bodily injury, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.
In a Tuesday filing opposing Rein’s motion, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz’s office argued the request is “overbroad, vague, [and] irrelevant to the defendant’s case.”
When he was interviewed for more than an hour on the day of the crash, Rein didn’t attempt to blame his 2019 SUV, saying instead that his foot got “stuck” on the gas pedal, prosecutors said.
“On my car, um, it’s a 4Runner — and this has happened before — is, is, my right foot gets stuck on the accelerator,” Rein told investigators, according to the court filing. “It doesn’t — it’s, it’s like how can that happen? But the design of it is like it kind of gets, your foot can get sort of stuck in between the pedal and then to the right of it. And that’s what happened. It’s happened to me before once.”
Rein allegedly told investigators the 4Runner was a “great car” and didn’t report any other issues with it.
Prosecutors further argued that Rein had not presented any version of the events of Nov. 21, 2022, that would support a claim that faulty artificial intelligence technology inside the Toyota caused the deadly crash.
“The motion presents no information that the defendant’s vehicle was even equipped with ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) features,’ much less any evidence that such features caused ‘unintended acceleration’ in this case,” prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors accused Rein and his attorney of going on a “fishing expedition” in hopes of finding exculpatory evidence, without knowing whether such evidence actually exists.
“With this motion, the defendant casts the broadest possible net in the hopes of finding something, currently unknown to him, that will assist in his defense,” they wrote.
The case will return to Plymouth Superior Court on June 27 for arguments over the Toyota motion. A date has not been set for trial.
Jeremy C. Fox can be reached at jeremy.fox@globe.com. Follow him @jeremycfox.