The Colorado Parole Board denied the parole request of the Cuban truck driver Rogel Lázaro Aguilera-Mederos, who is serving a sentence for the 2019 multi-vehicle accident on Interstate 70 that claimed the lives of four people, as confirmed in an exclusive statement by the Colorado Department of Corrections to Noticias Univision Colorado.
With this decision, Aguilera-Mederos will remain incarcerated at least until his next hearing, scheduled for September 2027.
If he does not obtain parole at that hearing, his expected release date is December 13, 2029, although it could be moved up depending on the accrued 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 the I-70 when, according to his defense, the brakes failed while going down a steep slope west of Denver.
The truck reached speeds of up to 85 mph and crashed into stopped traffic, triggering a chain reaction involving approximately 28 vehicles and causing a massive fire.
The four fatalities were Doyle Harrison (61 years old), William Bailey (67), Stanley Politano (69), and Miguel Ángel Lamas Arellano (24). Ten other people were injured.
The prosecution argued that the driver made erroneous decisions: they ignored an emergency ramp for out-of-control trucks and overused the brakes instead of downshifting.
A company without experience and a driver without training
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 just 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 they stated, "he didn't know how to drive while slowing down with a gear shift."
"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 sentence of 110 years and the commutation
In October 2021, a jury found Aguilera-Mederos guilty of 27 charges, including four counts of vehicular homicide.
Judge A. Bruce Jones imposed a 110-year prison sentence, the mandatory minimum under Colorado's consecutive sentencing laws, a punishment 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 hope they can forgive me and that God performs a miracle and touches their hearts,” he stated in an interview with Telemundo.
The conviction 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. Although you are not free of blame, your sentence is disproportionate compared to many other inmates who committed intentional, premeditated, or violent crimes."
The refusal 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 request did not meet, according to the cited source.
Your next opportunity will arrive in September 2027.
If he does not obtain parole, he will remain incarcerated until December 13, 2029, the date on which he will complete his sentence with the corresponding time credits.
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