Colorado prosecutor showed off brake-shoe gift after helping convict 26-year-old trucker sentenced to 110 years for deadly crash

[ZiprHead]

Colorado prosecutor showed off brake-shoe gift after helping convict 26-year-old trucker sentenced to 110 years for deadly crash

A prosecutor who helped convict Rogel Aguilera-Mederos for his role in a deadly 2019 crash posted a photo of a brake shoe she said was a gift.

www.insider.com

After a 26-year-old truck driver received a 110-year prison sentence for his role in a deadly crash, a Colorado prosecutor who helped convict him drew outrage for showing off a brake shoe she was gifted on social media.

Rogel Aguilera-Mederos, a 26-year-old truck driver who said his brakes failed during a 2019 crash that killed four people, was convicted on 27 counts in October. At Aguilera-Mederos' December 13 sentencing, Jefferson County District Judge A. Bruce Jones said state law required the sentences be served consecutively, leading to a 110-year prison term.

Kayla Wildeman, a Jefferson County deputy district attorney, was part of a team of prosecutors that helped convict Aguilera-Mederos. She posted a photo of a brake shoe from a semitrailer and an accompanying plaque on Facebook, according to KUSA, although it's unclear when she posted the photo. Wildeman's social-media pages have since been deactivated.

Wildeman said in her Facebook post that she received the brake shoe as a gift from Jared Maritsky, a fellow deputy district attorney, according to KUSA.

"To make any kind of mockery or behave as if this was a ball game of winning and losing is an outrage," Leonard Martinez, Aguilera-Mederos' attorney, said, as quoted by KMGH. "This was about four people losing their lives and another person facing the prospect of a 110-year prison sentence."

More than 3.7 million people have signed a petition asking Colorado Gov. Jared Polis to commute the sentence or grant Aguilera-Mederos clemency. A spokesperson for Polis previously told Insider's Connor Perrett that, "We are aware of this issue, the Governor and his team review each clemency application individually."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Why are people acting like this guy is a victim?

 

[thebeave]

I hope that didn't hurt the truck driver's feelings. People can be so reckless and uncaring.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I hope that didn't hurt the truck driver's feelings. People can be so reckless and uncaring.

As long as we ignore other people exist, like the families of the dead, your post is completely above board.

 

[ZiprHead]

Losing brakes is a common problem in semis, especially in mountainous regions like Colorado. That's why they have truck runoff areas at the bottoms of hills and mountains. We have them here in the mountainous areas of north eastern lower Michigan.

 

[Jarhyn]

Losing brakes is a common problem in semis, especially in mountainous regions like Colorado. That's why they have truck runoff areas at the bottoms of hills and mountains. We have them here in the mountainous areas of north eastern lower Michigan.

What's amazing is the gallery of folks who is here in an instant to say they don't care that in addition to knowing that happened in their life and that they have to live with it in their lives, now has to also suffer for the rest of it seeing and knowing that history from the inside of a cell.

As if that makes anyone better.

 

[laughing dog]

Apparently there are a lot of people upset with the length of the sentence.

The flapdoodle about the DA shows once again that people ought to pay a little more attention to what their post on Facebook. If the public does not think that DAs celebrate "big wins", they are pretty naive.

 

[Derec]

Losing brakes is a common problem in semis, especially in mountainous regions like Colorado. That's why they have truck runoff areas at the bottoms of hills and mountains. We have them here in the mountainous areas of north eastern lower Michigan.

And this guy ignored at least one of these runoffs. Which is why the conviction is appropriate.

 

[Derec]

Apparently there are a lot of people upset with the length of the sentence.

And they want Jared Polis to commute to time served. 110 years may be too long, but 2 years would be way too short. 20 years might be appropriate, but not 2.
Unfortunately, Polis is the type of woke idiot who just might give in to this demand.

 

[Derec]

What's amazing is the gallery of folks who is here in an instant to say they don't care that in addition to knowing that happened in their life and that they have to live with it in their lives, now has to also suffer for the rest of it seeing and knowing that history from the inside of a cell.
As if that makes anyone better.

 

[Swammerdami]

I do NOT understand some of the comments in this thread. Isn't it obvious that killing by accident is completely different from killing for profit or killing due to hatred? Do I need to explain this?

Negligence is bad, and might merit punishment, but the negligence is the same whether he ended up killing 4 people, or 4 raccoons. (I did not read the story. Did he have a chance to veer off the road and kill himself instead of four innocents? That could be punishable but even that wouldn't change the fact that 100 years is a ridiculous sentence for this negligence.)

Contrast these killings with the killings by Kyle Rittenshit or George Zimmerfuk. Their deliberate evil should have been punished as "depraved heart" murders, yet I'll guess the "self-defense" murders they commited are condoned by some of the same people happy to see this truck driver spend his life in prison for an accident.

 

[ZiprHead]

Losing brakes is a common problem in semis, especially in mountainous regions like Colorado. That's why they have truck runoff areas at the bottoms of hills and mountains. We have them here in the mountainous areas of north eastern lower Michigan.

And this guy ignored at least one of these runoffs. Which is why the conviction is appropriate.

do you know he had brake problems when he passed that run off?

I don't think anyone is saying the conviction isn't appropriate. It's the sentencing that is wildly out of whack.

That, and the prosecutor displaying a brake shoe trophy is completely in poor taste and insensitive to both the victims and the defendant.

 

[ZiprHead]

Juror in Colorado truck crash case says 110-year sentence 'not right': 'cried my eyes out'

A juror in the case of trucker Rogel Aguilera-Mederos' deadly 2019 crash says the sentence of 110 years behind bars isn't right.

www.foxnews.com

 

[scombrid]

I watched a video that showed him wrestling an out of control truck down the hill and he went right by the run-out. Dude was super at fault for not ditching somewhere rather than running straight into stopped traffic. 110 year sentence is most consistent with malice though. I'd wager he was panicked in his decisions. Maybe his failure to render aid was a factor in the sentence but I don't see malice in my limited knowledge. Looks like a young driver shitting himself ball-hooting down a hill in a truck that ain't got no brakes.

Responding to a couple of posts in the thread. The opening post critical of the prosecutor holding a trophy like the case was some sort of game is hardly absolving the driver or treating him like a victim. It is negative commentary on the conduct of the prosecution. This should be a case where justice is sought, not F'ing trophy hunting. Isn't any prize to be had here and the brake trophy is kind of fucked up.

 

[ZiprHead]

I watched a video that showed him wrestling an out of control truck down the hill and he went right by the run-out. Dude was super at fault for not ditching somewhere rather than running straight into stopped traffic. 110 year sentence is most consistent with malice though. I'd wager he was panicked in his decisions. Maybe his failure to render aid was a factor in the sentence. But, an opening post critical of the prosecutor holding a trophy like the case was some sort of game is hardly absolving the driver or treating him like a victim. It is negative commentary on the conduct of the prosecution. This is a case where justice is sought, not F'ing trophy hunting.

Agreed. Considering his age, he was probably quite an inexperienced truck driver. Trucking companies are scrambling to hire drivers and they'll take anyone they can get.

I don't get the "failure to render aid" part though. He's a truck driver, not an emt, and he had just been in a serious accident himself.

 

[Gun Nut]

Our legal processes are entirely rooted in an adversarial system of "winning or loosing" cases. That is how it works... Humans compete with each other as a matter of course of being human.. it is WHY our systems reward success and punish failure...
The prosecution "celebrating success" may or may not be socially appropriate as "good sportsmanship".. but it wholly and entirely normal human behavior.
The problem here is the prosecution feeling like an obviously inappropriate sentence is a "fair win" where "celebration" is "socially acceptable".

 

[Gun Nut]

I watched a video that showed him wrestling an out of control truck down the hill and he went right by the run-out. Dude was super at fault for not ditching somewhere rather than running straight into stopped traffic. 110 year sentence is most consistent with malice though. I'd wager he was panicked in his decisions. Maybe his failure to render aid was a factor in the sentence. But, an opening post critical of the prosecutor holding a trophy like the case was some sort of game is hardly absolving the driver or treating him like a victim. It is negative commentary on the conduct of the prosecution. This is a case where justice is sought, not F'ing trophy hunting.

Agreed. Considering his age, he was probably quite an inexperienced truck driver. Trucking companies are scrambling to hire drivers and they'll take anyone they can get.

I don't get the "failure to render aid" part though. He's a truck driver, not an emt, and he had just been in a serious accident himself.

"Failure to render aid" means not even pressing a few buttons on your phone and saying 'help'. No one is expected to be a hero... but doing at least slightly more than absolutely nothing is expected by the society you live in... and doing exactly nothing when a cell phone is in your pocket (or the absolute worst, it's in your hand and you are filming rather than calling 911), is a form of "Malice".
Doing nothing when calling for help is so trivially safe and easy is pretty much saying "I want you to die".

 

[Toni]

I watched a video that showed him wrestling an out of control truck down the hill and he went right by the run-out. Dude was super at fault for not ditching somewhere rather than running straight into stopped traffic. 110 year sentence is most consistent with malice though. I'd wager he was panicked in his decisions. Maybe his failure to render aid was a factor in the sentence. But, an opening post critical of the prosecutor holding a trophy like the case was some sort of game is hardly absolving the driver or treating him like a victim. It is negative commentary on the conduct of the prosecution. This is a case where justice is sought, not F'ing trophy hunting.

Agreed. Considering his age, he was probably quite an inexperienced truck driver. Trucking companies are scrambling to hire drivers and they'll take anyone they can get.

I don't get the "failure to render aid" part though. He's a truck driver, not an emt, and he had just been in a serious accident himself.

"Failure to render aid" means not even pressing a few buttons on your phone and saying 'help'. No one is expected to be a hero... but doing at least slightly more than absolutely nothing is expected by the society you live in... and doing exactly nothing when a cell phone is in your pocket (or the absolute worst, it's in your hand and you are filming rather than calling 911), is a form of "Malice".
Doing nothing when calling for help is so trivially safe and easy is pretty much saying "I want you to die".

Did he have his phone? Sometimes those are lost in accidents—they fly out of windows or fall to the floor or under a seat. It’s quite likely that he was in shock.

The length of the sentence is far too long.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The length of the sentence is far too long.

That's because the sentence was for another case.

There are always cases where people get upset about insufficiently long sentences. They'll rant about privilege and liberal judges and leftist agendas. Some post it here.

And someone campaigns to 'fix' such lawlessness in our once great legal system. And write laws to make sentences huge and mandatory, and unable to be served concurrently.
And the laws are passed because everyone has the last miscarriage of justice in mind. Not the next one.

Then prosecutor and judge have no options. But they're the ones everyone blames. Including the voters that literally asked for this....

 

[TomC]

I don't think anyone is saying the conviction isn't appropriate. It's the sentencing that is wildly out of whack.

Exactly this.

He was operating a multi-ton missile under dangerous circumstances. His lack of judgment caused a gigantic disaster, which was avoidable.

But a 110 year sentence won't fix any vehicles or heal broken bones, much less bring back the dead loved ones. It looks entirely like a combination of naked vengeance and political opportunism to me.

As a hardcore Prolifer, I cannot find that morally acceptable. Life is more than mere survival. It's about treating people, with inherent worth and dignity, as people. The conviction is the correct response. The sentence is ridiculous.

Tom