(DailyVantage.com) – Vehicular accidents happen all the time. Authorities investigate the circumstances around the incident and determine whether the driver should face charges. In the case of Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a 26-year-old truck driver, not only did he face charges, a jury convicted and subsequently sentenced him to 110 years in prison. Now, the public is seeking clemency on his behalf.
In April 2019, Aguilera-Mederos, then 23, was working just west of Denver, driving his company’s truck on I-70, when he crashed into stopped traffic after his brakes failed. The accident resulted in four deaths and damage to 28 vehicles. As a result, authorities filed 41 charges. The jury convicted him of 27, including 4 charges of vehicular manslaughter, and handed down their lengthy sentence.
Jefferson County District Judge Bruce Jones didn’t agree with the sentence, but a Colorado law requires consecutive prison terms, not concurrent ones. Immediately following his sentencing, the public got involved, creating a change.org petition that quickly grew to over four million signatures. The petition calls for Colorado Governor Jared Polis (D) to grant Aguilera-Mederos “clemency or commutation-as time served.”
Petition for truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, who was sentenced to 110 years in fatal Colorado pileup, has grown to 4.3 million signatures; truckers nationwide also showing support https://t.co/OxQ42d3WPq
— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) December 20, 2021
Aguilera-Mederos maintains he struggled with the truck, trying to get it into gear when the brakes failed on him. He showed extreme remorse while testifying, even going so far as to say he should’ve died and not the victims.
Polis’ office has acknowledged the petition and said Polis and his team “review each clemency application individually.”
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