Colorado truck driver sentenced to 110 years tries to reduce prison term

A Colorado judge set a hearing date to reconsider the 110-year sentence for a truck driver involved in a fatal accident in 2019. 

Judge Bruce Jones set the hearing for Jan. 13 regarding Rogel Aguilera-Mederos’s lengthy sentence, according to The Associated Press. 

Jones added that he wanted to learn about the law that would allow him the discretion to determine his own sentence and said that victims would be permitted to speak at the hearing, the AP reported. 

“I am a captive audience if they want to speak to me,” the judge said of the victims.

The 26-year-old was convicted of 27 counts in October after a 2019 accident when he was driving a truck that killed four people and crashed into several cars. He later received a 110-year sentence, and Colorado law requires him to serve time for each count consecutively, not concurrently.

“I will state that if I had the discretion, it would not be my sentence,” Jones said at the time of the sentencing.

But over 4.6 million people have since signed an online petition urging Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) to grant the driver “clemency or commutation as time served.” 

Last week, First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King filed a motion to have the driver’s sentence reconsidered on Friday.

Now, King has said that a 20 to 30 year sentence would be considered an “appropriate outcome” for the accident, the AP noted. 

“As the jury found, Mr. Aguilera-Mederos knowingly made multiple active choices that resulted in the death of four people, serious injuries to others, and mass destruction,” King said.