Trucker in deadly Colorado crash charged with 40 criminal counts

[May 04, 2019]  By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) - A Texas truck driver who police say caused a fiery multi-vehicle crash near Denver last week that killed four people and injured four was charged on Friday with 40 criminal counts including vehicular homicide, prosecutors said.

Police in Lakewood, Colorado said they arrested 23-year-old Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos after he lost control of his tractor-trailer truck during the evening rush hour on April 25 and caused a crash on Interstate 70 that involved at least 28 vehicles.

The district attorney for Jefferson County, where the crash took place, charged Aguilera-Mederos with 40 counts on Friday, including four counts of vehicular homicide, six of first degree assault and 24 of attempted first degree assault.

A preliminary hearing in the case was set for July 11. Aguilera-Mederos is being held on a $400,000 bond.

The tractor-trailer, which was carrying lumber, rammed into several cars, causing a pile-up that became a raging inferno, authorities said. The four men who died were all single occupants in their vehicles, according to a local TV station.

"The carnage was significant," police spokesman Ty Countryman said at the time. "Just unbelievable."

There was no initial indication that Aguilera-Mederos intentionally caused the crash, or that he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, Countryman said.

Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos appears in a Lakewood Police booking photo after he was arrested for suspicion of multiple counts of vehicular homicide following a crash on the I-70 in Lakewood, Colorado, U.S., April 26, 2019. Lakewood Police Department/Handout via REUTERS.

Aguilera-Mederos told police his brakes had failed, but cell phone video from a witness showed his truck veering across several lanes of traffic and forcing another vehicle off the road before the crash, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Rob Corry, a lawyer for Aguilera-Mederos, said last week that the crash was an accident caused by equipment malfunction.

"This is a massive unprecedented overreach by the prosecution ... on a vehicle accident," Corry told reporters on Friday.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; additional reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York; editing by Steve Orlofsky)

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