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Colorado truck driver’s sentence cut by 100 years

A truck driver who was facing a 110-year jail term for a deadly crash has had his sentence reduced to 10 years, following a widespread outcry.

Rogel Aguilera-Mederos crashed into traffic in 2019, killing four people in Colorado.

According to reports, at the trial he was convicted on 27 counts, and the judge said state law forced him to impose the lengthy sentence.

But on Thursday, Colorado Governor Jared Polis commuted what he called an “unjust” sentence, according to BBC.

Aguilera-Mederos was transporting timber in the Rocky Mountains foothills when the deadly crash happened in April 2019.

The lorry careered downhill into stationary traffic, bursting into flames and causing a major pile-up in the city of Lakewood.

Four people – Stanley Politano, 69, William Bailey, 67, Doyle Harrison, 61, and Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano, 24 – were killed.

Aguilera-Mederos, a Cuban immigrant, told officials that his brakes had failed, and that he had tried his best to avoid other vehicles as he lost control of the truck.

More than five million people, including reality TV star and law student Kim Kardashian West, signed a petition that called for a reduction in his lengthy prison sentence.

Truck drivers also announced on social media that they would boycott Colorado over the sentencing.

As governor, Mr Polis has constitutional power to grant pardons, clemency and commutations.

In a letter to Aguilera-Mederos, he called the crash “a tragic but unintentional act” and said there was “an urgency to remedy this unjust sentence and restore confidence in the uniformity and fairness of our criminal justice system”.

Aguilera-Mederos will be eligible to apply for parole in five years.

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