The Colorado Parole Board denied the parole request of the Cuban truck driver Rogel Lázaro Aguilera-Mederos, who is serving a sentence for the multiple-vehicle accident in 2019 on Interstate 70 that claimed the lives of four people, as confirmed exclusively by the Colorado Department of Corrections to Noticias Univision Colorado.
With this decision, Aguilera-Mederos will have to remain incarcerated at least until his next hearing, scheduled for September 2027.
If he does not obtain parole in that instance, his expected release date is December 13, 2029, although it could be advanced based on accumulated time credits.
The accident that shocked Colorado
On April 25, 2019, Aguilera-Mederos, then 23 years old, was driving a trailer loaded with wood on I-70 when, according to his defense, the brakes failed while descending a steep slope west of Denver.
The truck reached speeds of up to 85 mph and crashed into stopped traffic, triggering a chain reaction that involved about 28 vehicles and caused a massive fire.
The four fatalities were Doyle Harrison (61 years old), William Bailey (67), Stanley Politano (69), and Miguel Ángel Lamas Arellano (24). Additionally, 10 other individuals were injured.
The prosecution argued that the driver made erroneous decisions: he ignored an escape ramp for out-of-control trucks and overused the brakes instead of downshifting.
A company without experience and an untrained driver
Subsequent investigations revealed that Aguilera-Mederos was employed by Castellano 03 Trucking, a company founded by Yaimy Galán Segura that operated from her home in Houston with only one truck and no experience in transportation. He had been in that job for less than two weeks when the accident occurred.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration determined that he had obtained his interstate commercial driver's license less than a year before the incident and that the company did not provide him with the required training.
A previous employer had fired him because, as he stated, "he didn't know how to drive while reducing speed with a gear lever."
"The driver should never have been in that truck. The people who put him in that truck did not do their job properly," stated attorney Mike McCormick.
The 110-year sentence and its commutation
In October 2021, a jury found Aguilera-Mederos guilty of 27 counts, including four ofvehicular homicide.
Judge A. Bruce Jones sentenced him to a 110-year prison term, the mandatory minimum under Colorado's consecutive sentencing laws, a penalty that the judge himself described as excessive, but stated he could not avoid.
From prison, Aguilera-Mederos himself expressed his remorse: "I want to tell those families that it was never intentional, never, I would like them to forgive me and for God to perform a miracle and touch their hearts," he declared in an interview with Telemundo.
The ruling sparked an unprecedented public reaction: a petition on Change.org in support of the truck driver surpassed 5 million signatures.
On December 30, 2021, Governor Jared Polis commuted the sentence to 10 years, describing the original penalty as "highly atypical and unjust."
In his letter to the condemned, Polis wrote: "You were sentenced to 110 years in prison, effectively more than a life sentence, for a tragic but unintentional act. While you are not blameless, your sentence is disproportionate compared to many other inmates who committed intentional, premeditated, or violent crimes."
The denial and the path that remains
The commutation established that Aguilera-Mederos could apply for parole starting December 30, 2026, but the board expedited the evaluation and ruled against him on October 16.
The body required at least four favorable votes from the seven participating members, a threshold that the application did not reach, according to the aforementioned source.
His next opportunity will come in September 2027. If he does not obtain parole then, he will remain incarcerated until December 13, 2029, the date on which he will complete his sentence, accounting for the corresponding time credits.
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