Rogel Aguilera-Mederos was discovered responsible on 27 counts, together with 4 counts of vehicular manslaughter, after the April 2019 crash close to Lakewood.
LAKEWOOD, Colo. — The person convicted after a crash on Interstate 70 that left 4 individuals useless was sentenced to 110 years in jail Monday afternoon.
Rogel Aguilera-Mederos was 23 when his semi-truck slammed into stopped visitors on the interstate close to Denver West Parkway on April 25, 2019. 4 individuals died immediately from the influence: Doyle Harrison, William Bailey, Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano and Stanley Politano. It’s believed all of them died from accidents and never the ensuing fireplace.
Aguilera-Mederos was discovered responsible by a jury on 27 counts in complete. Probably the most critical prices have been 4 counts of vehicular manslaughter. Different counts he was discovered responsible of included first-degree assault, first-degree try and commit assault, vehicular assault, reckless driving and careless driving.
He was discovered not responsible on 15 counts of first-degree try and commit assault.
Decide A. Bruce Jones sentenced Aguilera-Mederos to the required 10-year minimal for every of the six counts of first-degree assault with excessive indifference, to be served consecutively.
He was additionally sentenced to the required minimal of 5 years for 10 extra counts of tried first-degree assault with excessive indifference. These can be served consecutively as nicely.
The choose mentioned the legislature required him to order these sentences be served consecutively, which was why, he mentioned, he issued the minimal sentence for these prices. Nevertheless, he did say he could have sentenced Aguilera-Mederos to greater than the minimal, if not required to concern the sentences consecutively.
“In all sufferer influence statements I learn, I didn’t glean from them somebody saying, ‘He needs to be in jail for the remainder of his life, and he ought to by no means, ever get out,” Jones mentioned. “Removed from it. There was forgiveness mirrored in these statements, but in addition a need that he be punished and serve time in jail, and I share these sentiments.”
Along with the 110 years stemming from these prices, Aguilera-Mederos was sentenced to 30 years for 11 different prices that can be served concurrently.
> Watch the choose’s sentencing right here:
Aguilera-Mederos was extraordinarily emotional as he requested for forgiveness earlier than Jones introduced the sentence.
“I do know it has been laborious and heartbreaking for everybody concerned,” he mentioned although tears. “I can not sleep, I believe on a regular basis in regards to the victims. Part of me can be lacking without end, as nicely.”
Aguilera-Mederos mentioned he took duty for the crash, and mentioned it was not intentional. “I’ve by no means thought of hurting anybody in my complete life,” he mentioned.
“I hope to apologize, sorry for the loss, sorry for the individuals in right here, I do know they harm,” Aguilera-Mederos mentioned. “I do know they’ve trauma, I do know. I really feel that. However please do not be indignant with me, please.”
> Watch Aguilera-Mederos communicate throughout the sentencing listening to under:
Gage Evans, the spouse of Invoice Bailey, mentioned in her sufferer influence assertion that her confidence has been shattered since shedding her husband.
“He was my teammate, we really known as ourselves ‘Group Bailey-Evans,'” she mentioned. “There was nothing that group Bailey-Evans could not deal with. Now, with out Invoice, the group is now not and I haven’t got the assist I am used to.”
Evans mentioned she has suffered from psychological well being points all through her life, and that Bailey was her most important assist system.
“My shallowness and confidence rose sharply, instantly once I met Invoice,” Evans mentioned. “He was the primary individual in my life with whom, I felt, I may very well be my true and sincere self.”
Catherine Harrison, the spouse of Doyle Harrison, mentioned in her assertion that she is struggling to cope with choices and conditions they used to face collectively.
Harrison mentioned she was prepared to to forgive Aguilera-Mederos, however that he settle for duty and face penalties for the choices that result in the lethal crash.
“I do have a willingness to forgive, however forgiveness doesn’t suggest letting somebody off the hook, [but] that they should come to grips with what they’ve finished and absolutely acknowledge their actions in how they have been flawed, and search that forgiveness,” Harrison mentioned.
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The jury needed to determine whether or not the crash resulted from a sequence of unhealthy decisions by the driving force or a mechanical failure that the driving force had no management over.
Aguilera-Mederos confronted 42 counts in all. He testified for hours and tearfully recounted publicly for the primary time his model of what occurred on that day.
Watch Aguilera-Mederos inform his story for the primary time publicly whereas testifying under:
Each side agreed that his truck misplaced brakes in some unspecified time in the future, however they disagreed on how or why that occurred.
“There’s solely two methods this will go: Both the defendant did not catch it like he was alleged to, or the defendant drove on his brakes your entire method and induced them to be that method,” mentioned Deputy District Legal professional Kayla Wildeman.
The protection countered that the brakes have been unhealthy on the trailer earlier than Aguilera-Mederos left Texas days earlier and that he shouldn’t be blamed for components that weren’t correctly maintained.
“Had these trailer brakes been operable and had they been functioning and correctly maintained earlier than that trailer left Houston, this accident by no means would have occurred,” mentioned protection lawyer James Colgan. “Mr. Mederos had no concept that what he was dragging behind him from Houston was an inoperable trailer. He had no concept that when he wanted these trailer brakes, they weren’t going to exist.”
RELATED: Trailer brakes have been ‘mainly nonexistent’, protection witness says
After the brakes have been out, prosecutors argued that Aguilera-Mederos made a sequence of unhealthy decisions that resulted within the crash. One in every of them being his failure to make use of a runaway truck ramp on the freeway.
“He noticed that ramp,” Wildeman mentioned. “However what he did was a value profit evaluation. He checked out it and mentioned I can child this down the hill. I can get this down, and so he goes previous it. And it is not till he sees the visitors that he realizes, ‘Oh, crap.’ He made a selection. He selected to go that.”
Colgan argued that it wasn’t on objective and that on the time he handed the ramp, Mederos was weaving on the freeway to keep away from vehicles.
“Opposite to what the prosecution has mentioned, he did not purposely keep away from the runaway truck ramp. He was transferring out and in of visitors,” Colgan mentioned. “Perhaps there was some tunnel imaginative and prescient happening right here. If anybody has ever been below stress, particularly surprising stress simply take into consideration that for second. You give attention to one factor.”
Colgan additionally mentioned it wasn’t apparent the place this ramp was.
“And if that is the primary time you have ever pushed it below a interval of surprising stress, it is unfair to say, nicely you purposefully prevented that runaway ramp. That is not what occurred.”
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After shedding his brakes, Mederos himself mentioned that he deliberate to remain on the shoulder till he might get to extra flat space and decelerate the truck.
“The choice I took was that I used to be going to proceed on the shoulder, however there was one other 18-wheeler that was parked there beneath the bridge,” he mentioned.
He mentioned he tried to make use of an area in between the truck and the automobile subsequent to it on the left and commenced swerving between vehicles “like a snake” as a result of he was making an attempt to keep away from the autos.
“So the semi was right here. So what I did was to hit the trailer, which is one thing that’s greater, in order that the truck would gradual in pace, however as soon as I hit it, I used to be not capable of management something,” he mentioned.
Watch the closing arguments under:
Wildeman mentioned that the industrial driver’s license guide tells drivers precisely what to do if there no ramp. So she argued he had different choices after passing it.
“He did not care in regards to the different individuals on the street; he cared about himself,” she mentioned. “He was all the way in which within the left lane – swerved all the way in which over the shoulder. He noticed that Magnificence Mattress truck pulled up – got here up and he thought, ‘If I hit that truck, I will die.’ So then he swerved into visitors.
“He picks the selection the place he 100% is aware of individuals are going to be hit. They are going to die and they’ll be harm. He avoids all of the semi vehicles. He chooses the smaller vehicles the place he is aware of he is not going to die. He takes that path proper by way of. He swerved right into a sea of vehicles that have been sitting geese with nowhere to go.”
RELATED: ‘It nonetheless haunts me to at the present time’: Witnesses recall surviving fiery I-70 crash
Colgan admitted that Mederos was “overwhelmed” and even inexperienced, however he made one of the best choices he might given the place he discovered himself in.
“The reality of the matter is that by the point this truck acquired to the underside of the hill, there have been no choices obtainable. All of the choices weren’t obtainable the place nobody was going to get harm,” he mentioned. “It is simple to be an armchair quarterback. It’s extremely straightforward to say ‘That is what I might have finished.’ However the truth that Mr. Mederos was not prepared to commit suicide does not make him a killer.”
Watch the complete studying of the decision under:
Brett Dickerson mentioned whereas testifying that Aguilera-Mederos appeared “terrified” when he made eye contact with him on the freeway close to Evergreen previous to the crash. He mentioned he first observed that Aguilera-Mederos was altering lanes extra steadily than he is sometimes seen a giant truck do.
He testified that he ultimately determined to get previous the truck, which he described as driving “erratic.” Dickerson mentioned he was going round 80 mph when he went previous the truck however made eye contact with the driving force as he glided by.
“He appeared like he wasn’t in command of the car at the moment,” Dickerson mentioned. “I simply noticed a really terrified look.”
RELATED: Truck driver charged in lethal crash appeared ‘terrified’ miles earlier than fiery crash, witness says
Roman Hernandez-Chicon, a industrial truck driver who testified in Spanish by way of a translator in courtroom, mentioned he’d been a truck driver for about 20 years and was headed again from Chatfield State Park to Commerce Metropolis when he was caught within the crash.
Hernandez-Chicon mentioned he was sitting in bumper-to-bumper visitors when he felt his truck get hit laborious on the suitable and one thing went previous him “like a bullet” after which he heard explosions. He mentioned he grabbed a fireplace extinguisher however rapidly realized the fireplace was a lot too massive for it to have any impact.
Hernandez-Chicon mentioned he then went to the world behind the crash and tried to get drivers behind the crash to show round, which he mentioned allowed sufficient house for fireplace crews to get to the scene and start preventing the fireplace.
Hernandez-Chicon advised in courtroom testimony that Aguilera-Mederos had choices in addition to working into the stopped visitors. He mentioned that he might have used the truck ramp, deliberately pushed into the guardrail, or lay the truck down its facet, when he knew he was in hassle however earlier than he had reached the stopped visitors.
Nevertheless, Hernandez-Chicon additionally famous the maneuver is “very harmful” and that it could be almost not possible for a driver who was already panicked to tug off. He additionally mentioned these choices aren’t taught however are one thing he is realized over his years of expertise driving massive rigs.
RELATED: CDOT surveys drivers on runaway truck ramps
The Colorado Division of Transportation (CDOT) is conducting a survey on how acquainted semi-truck drivers are with mountain roads — particularly escape ramps.
CDOT mentioned the suggestions from this survey will assist them decide the position and design of a brand new runaway truck ramp on eastbound I-70, simply earlier than the scene of that crash.
The survey asks drivers for his or her expertise stage, sort of employment and familiarity ranges relating to mountain driving.
Click on right here to see the survey.
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