A judge sentenced a Colorado man to 110 years in prison Monday. He was on trial for causing an accident in 2019: His truck brakes failed, and he crashed into traffic on the interstate, ultimately killing four people.
In October, the jury found Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, now 26, guilty of 27 counts in relation to the accident, including four counts of vehicular manslaughter, six counts of assault in the first degree, and 10 counts of attempt to commit assault in the first degree. He was acquitted on an additional 15 counts.
Though prosecutors conceded that Aguilera-Mederos' brakes stopped working, they argued that he was at fault for the mechanical defect. "There's only two ways this can go: either the defendant didn't catch it like he was supposed to or the defendant drove on his brakes the entire way and caused them to be that way," said Deputy District Attorney Kayla Wildeman, according to a local NBC affiliate. She also told the jury that the driver had failed to mitigate the truck's failure by not taking an off-ramp when he had the chance: "He saw that ramp….He looked at it and said I can baby this down the hill. I can get this down and so he goes past it. And it's not until he sees the traffic that he realizes, 'Oh, crap.' He made a choice. He chose to pass that."
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