Colorado Governor Jared Polis on Thursday commuted the 110-year sentence of a truck driver convicted of vehicular homicide, reducing the prison term to 10 years after prosecutors went back to court this week in a rare move seeking leniency.
In a commutation letter to the Cuban-born trucker, Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, 26, the governor said the fiery crash along a mountain highway that killed four motorists in April 2019 was a “tragic but unintentional act.”
“While you are not blameless, your sentence is disproportionate compared with many other inmates in our criminal justice system who committed intentional, premeditated, or violent crimes,” the letter said.
Aguilera-Mederos will now be eligible for parole in five years, the governor said.
Aguilera-Mederos’s lawyer, James Colgan, said his client was pleased with the news. “He is relieved and very grateful,” Colgan said.
A message left for District Attorney Alexis King was not immediately returned.
King went to court on Monday for a hearing requesting that the 110-year sentence, imposed earlier this month, be reduced to a prison term in the 20-to-30-year range, arguing that greater leniency was warranted in a highly publicized case that prosecutors said lacked criminal intent.
(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Editing by Steve Gorman, Chris Reese and Grant McCool)
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