Who is Rogel Aguilera-Mederos?
ROGEL Aguilera-Mederos was convicted of causing a car crash when the breaks on his truck failed and caused a 28-vehicle pileup in April 2019.
On December 30, 2021, a Colorado judge reduced his sentence to ten years.
Who is Rogel Aguilera-Mederos?
Mederos is a 26-year-old Cuban immigrant who said he moved to the US to provide a better life for his family.
The truck driver was charged with 27 charges and sentenced to 110 years in prison in December of 2021.
A Colorado judge said the state's mandatory-minimum sentencing laws are behind the hefty sentence, not his own accord.
On December 30, the sentence was revised to ten years.
What happened in the truck accident?
On April 25, 2019, Mederos was driving an 18-wheeler semi-truck loaded with lumber along Interstate 70 near Denver when the driver claims the vehicle lost its braking function as he was going downhill on a busy interstate highway.
Mederos, 23 at the time, was driving in rush hour traffic for his job at Houston-based trucking company, Castellano 03 Trucking LLC.
Prosecutors said the driver missed several runaway ramps designed to help vehicles that have lost control of their brakes.
The crash caused a huge fireball explosion, killing four people. It took hours for some of the victim's bodies to be pulled from the wreckage, Lakewood Police spokesperson Ty Countryman told reporters.
He said it was "one of the worst accidents we've had here in Lakewood."
Cops said no drugs or alcohol were involved and that Mederos has no prior criminal record.
Mederos has apologized profusely for what happened.
He told a packed courtroom during his sentencing: "I want to say sorry. Sorry for the loss, for the people injured. I know they have trauma, I know, I feel that.
"But please, don’t be angry with me… I was working hard for a better future for my family.
"I have never thought about hurting anybody in my entire life."
He said he takes "responsibility" for the crash.
What is the Rogel Aguilera-Mederos petition?
Anger over Mederos' sentence has seen more than 4million people sign an online petition calling for clemency.
Truckers are also planning to stage a boycott of Colorado by not driving through the state.
Many have slammed the lengthy sentence, arguing lesser sentences have been handed down to people convicted of other crimes, such as rape and murder.
The Change.org petition was set up by Heather Giblee in 2019, who called for the trucking company to be held responsible rather than Mederos.
It is calling for Mederos' sentence to be commuted as time served or for Governor Jared Polis to grant him clemency.
"I made this petition because i am a native to Colorado, who believes this man is NOT a criminal and this was purely an accident," Heather wrote.
"No, we are not trying to make it seem any less of a tragic accident that it is because yes, lives were lost.
"We are trying to hold the person who needs to be held responsible, responsible. The trucking company has had several inspections since 2017, with several mechanical violations."
It continued: "There are many things Rogel could have done to avoid the courts, but he took responsibility showed up and severely apologized to the victims families.
"Some of the families even offered Forgiveness. Rogel is not a criminal, the company he was working for knew the federal laws that go into truck driving but they failed to follow those laws.
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"Rogel has said several times that he wishes he had the courage to crash and take his own life that day, this tragic accident wasn’t done with Intent, it wasn't a criminal act, it was an accident."
As of December, the petition has reached over 4.6million signatures.