A 21-year-old college soccer player is dead because a truck driver who couldn't pass an English proficiency test was handed a commercial driver's license and put behind the wheel of an 80,000-pound rig on an American interstate.
Tobias "Toby" Forsythe, a goalkeeper for UMass Lowell and a native of Gahanna, Ohio, was killed early Sunday morning when his car was rear-ended on Interstate 71 in Madison County. The truck driver, 42-year-old Bekhzod Asrarov, is an Uzbek national who entered the United States in 2024 through the diversity visa lottery program during the Biden administration, sources told Fox News Digital. He held an Ohio Commercial Driver's License despite having previously failed an English language proficiency test.
The crash happened around 1:30 a.m. Asrarov's truck slammed into the back of Forsythe's vehicle, crashed through a median cable barrier, crossed over the median and into the northbound lanes, according to charging documents cited by ABC6. Forsythe was pronounced dead at the scene.
When Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers arrived, Asrarov had allegedly ripped the dash camera off its mount. Troopers found the device in his pocket at the hospital, according to court documents reported by the New Bedford Guide. He also allegedly attempted to destroy three cell phones and a logging device, sources told Fox News.
Asrarov has been charged with tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony, according to CBS News. When troopers tried to speak with him, they had to resort to Google Translate — the man licensed to pilot a massive commercial vehicle on American highways could not communicate with law enforcement in English.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy laid the blame squarely on the system that let Asrarov on the road. "We cannot let truck drivers like Asrarov, who can't read our road signs or speak to law enforcement, drive 80,000-pound rigs on America's highways," Duffy wrote on X. "I am praying for Toby's family and loved ones after this horrible loss. We will never stop fighting to keep these dangerous truck drivers OFF THE ROAD so no other parents have to endure this unimaginable grief."
MassLive covered Forsythe's death as a standard traffic tragedy, omitting any mention of Asrarov's immigration status, his English proficiency failure, or the alleged dash cam destruction — reducing a systemic failure to a faceless accident. The Daily Caller and the New York Post both reported the immigration and CDL angles, with the Post noting the Trump administration has moved to revoke CDLs from immigrant truck drivers who lack English proficiency.
Forsythe was an economics major who transferred to UMass Lowell after two seasons at Ashland University and a standout year at Shawnee State, where he started all 17 games in 2025. Head coach Kyle Zenoni called him "humble, honest, selfless and the definition of hard work" in a university statement. "He never looked for shortcuts and never expected anything to be given to him — he simply wanted the opportunity to earn it."
The crash remains under investigation. No additional charges have been announced beyond the tampering count. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller.
A 21-year-old who earned everything he got is dead. The man who killed him couldn't read a stop sign in English — but the state of Ohio gave him a CDL anyway. The question isn't just how Asrarov got behind the wheel. It's how many more like him are out there right now.
