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Judge Mark Warner, who oversaw three trials concerning the death
of McClain, who died after paramedics injected him with a
powerful sedative, reduced the sentence of emergency medical
worker Peter Cichuniec during a hearing to four years probation,
said Suzanne Karrer, a spokesperson for the Colorado judicial
branch.
Warner in March had sentenced the paramedic to five years in
prison, the longest sentence of any of the police and paramedics
put on trial for McClain's death. It was not immediately clear
when Cichuniec would be released.
"The court finds, really, there are unusual and extenuating
circumstances and they are truly exceptional in this particular
case," Warner said during a brief hearing, according to the
Denver Post.
After hours requests for comment were not returned from the
Colorado attorney general's office, which prosecuted the McClain
cases, or lawyers for Cichuniec.
Jurors in December found Cichuniec, 51, guilty of criminally
negligent homicide and also of assault in the second degree in a
rare trial of paramedics in such a case.
Cichuniec's partner, Jeremy Cooper, 49, was also found guilty of
criminally negligent homicide, and was sentenced to 14 months of
work release.
Their joint trial was the last of three stemming from the death
of McClain, 23, who was not alleged to have committed any crime
when officers stopped him.
One police officer was found guilty of criminally negligent
homicide and sentenced to 14 months in jail. Two other police
officers were acquitted.
Local prosecutors initially declined to file charges in the
McClain case. That changed following the May 2020 killing of
George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis
police.
(Reporting by Brad Brooks in Longmont, Colorado; editing by
Miral Fahmy)
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