Rally Demands Clemency for Trucker Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, Sentenced to 110 Years

"I want to see my son," Oslaida Mederos, the mother of truck driver Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, said in Spanish between sobs on the steps of the Colorado Capitol on December 22.

Mederos had joined around 100 of her son's supporters to call on Governor Jared Polis to reduce or commute the 110-year sentence that Aguilera-Mederos had been given in Jefferson County last week for a truck crash on Interstate 70 near Colorado Mills Parkway that left four people dead in April 2019. Aguilera-Mederos was 23 at the time of the crash.

A petition to grant Aguilera-Mederos clemency on change.org has gone viral, with close to 4.7 million people signing on. Kim Kardashian West is even tweeting about the case, writing, "I pray that Governor Polis, who has been a leader on supporting reforms that increase human dignity in the legal system, will commute his sentence."

"I can tell you that Rogel is humbled by everyone's support. He's grateful for everyone's support," Aguilera-Mederos's new lawyer, Leonard Martinez, said at the rally.

The lengthy sentence came as a result of mandatory sentencing following Aguilera-Mederos's conviction on 27 of the 41 charges that he got hit with in relation to the crash. The four people killed in the accident were 24-year-old Denver resident Miguel Angel Lamas Arellano; Doyle Harrison, a 61-year-old from Hudson; 67-year-old Arvadan William Bailey; and Stanley Politano, a 69-year-old who was also from Arvada.

Aside from Aguilera-Mederos's mother and lawyer, numerous elected officials attended the rally, which was conducted in both English and Spanish. Aguilera-Mederos is a Cuban immigrant; he was working for a Houston trucking company that has not been charged in connection with the tragedy.

"Set him free. Let him go home to his family," said Ramona Martinez, a former member and president of Denver City Council.

Lawyers with the District Attorney's Office for the First Judicial District, which is currently headed by DA Alexis King, prosecuted the case, originally brought forward under the leadership of King's predecessor, Peter Weir.

Kayla Wildeman, one of the prosecutors, recently bragged on Facebook about receiving a "brake shoe from a semi truck" that her colleague, Trevor Moritzky, turned into a memento to celebrate the conviction. The brake trophy display posted to Facebook includes Wildeman's name, the case number and "I-70 Case."

During Aguilera-Mederos's trial, much of the argument revolved around whether he was at fault for a crash that occurred after the brakes on his truck failed.

"The post was in very poor taste and does not reflect the values of my administration. We have addressed it internally," said King when asked about the trophy; she noted that the brakes in the piece were not actual evidence from the case.

"What kind of lack of compassion must you have to parade around with brake pads as though you won some major battle? This was not a war. This was a tragedy. It was a tragedy for the victims. It's a tragedy for the victims' families. It is a tragedy for Rogel as well, and his family," Joe Salazar, a former state legislator, said at the rally. "There is no winner here, and I'll be damned if the DA is going to think that they're the winners here."

On December 17, King's office filed a motion for the judge to reconsider Aguilera-Mederos's sentence. And Polis's office is currently reviewing the clemency request, which was filed earlier this week by Aguilera-Mederos's attorney.

The president of the national League of United Latin American Citizens flew into town to meet with Polis.

"Our message to Governor Polis is clear: This is a case of a tragedy being turned into an egregious injustice of Colorado’s criminal court system. Life in prison for a man who is a trucker and whose brakes went out is too harsh and not an appropriate sentence for the alleged crime," says president Domingo Garcia in a statement. "We hope that Rogel can go home to his family. Governor Polis, give Rogel his freedom this Christmas."