The man convicted of causing a vehicle crash three years ago that killed four people and injured eight others on Kunia Road has been granted parole, Paroling Authority administrator Max Otani confirmed yesterday.

John Szemkow, who has maintained he was not involved in the crash, could be released within the next two to three weeks, the amount of time typically needed to complete and file paperwork.

Otani said the parole board's reasons for accepting Szemkow's request for parole are confidential.

"The information that they pass on to us doesn't include deliberations," he said. "It's just that the parole board felt it could grant him parole and it wouldn't compromise public safety."

Earlier this month Szemkow, 49, completed a one-year jail sentence for third-degree negligent homicide. He was given a more lengthy 10-year felony sentence for leaving the scene of the April 6, 2006, accident.

Killed were Aquilina Polendey, 57, and Ana Sacalamitao, 46, of Waipahu; and Lorna Laroco, 53, and Gertrudis Montano, 59, of 'Ewa Beach.

"Parole has been tentatively approved, but no release date has been set yet," Otani said.

"His maximum sentence is his full parole term," said Otani, meaning that Szemkow could remain on parole until August 2018. However, Szemkow's parole time could be shortened at the discretion of the parole board.

The women killed were among a dozen farm workers riding in the bed of a red pickup truck that swerved to avoid an oncoming vehicle. The pickup then veered into oncoming traffic and collided head-on with a cement truck. Szemkow was convicted of being the driver of the car that caused the pickup to swerve.

Szemkow has consistently said he has no knowledge or memory of the crash. He has said he feels badly about the women who were killed. But he told the board that the evidence shows that he was not responsible for or involved in the crash.

"I'm the wrong guy to blame," he told the board Aug. 10.

John Schum, Szemkow's lawyer, told the board at a hearing in January that an examination of police and eyewitness accounts indicates that Szemkow could not have caused the accident and that he was so far in front of the crash when it happened that he would not have known it had occurred.

Szemkow, who has no prior criminal record, suffers from numerous serious disabilities. He is confined to a wheelchair, and his medical problems require a regimen of medications, including the use of a morphine pump and oxygen 24 hours a day.

Since his conviction, Szemkow has been held at the infirmary at the Halawa Correctional Facility because the infirmary at the O'ahu Community Correctional Center is not considered adequate to handle his conditions. Halawa prison doctor Steven DeWitt told the board that there was almost no possibility that Szemkow could ever be assigned to the general prison population.

Szemkow's case never went to trial. He pleaded no contest to the charges in April 2008. At the time, he said he was doing so to spare the families of the victims the ordeal of a protracted trial.

But he was visibly shaken four months later when he received the maximum sentence for leaving the scene.

The city prosecutor's office had argued that Szemkow should not be released on parole, but should remain imprisoned for at least four years — one year for each woman killed.

On Jan. 9, the parole board ruled Szemkow eligible for parole after serving five months. At a Feb. 10 parole hearing, the three-member panel expressed doubts that Szemkow knowingly left the scene of the accident, based on police reports and witness statements given shortly after the accident.

"We need to be sure we have the right guy in prison," Paroling Authority chairman Albert Tufono said at that time.