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In this photograph of April 26, 2019, workers remove debris from Interstate 70 in Lakewood, Colorado, from a stack involving a timber truck trailer that killed four people. The truck driver told the investigators that his brakes were not working. The Texas-based company owned the semi-trailer had two different trucks temporarily taken out of service for brake-related problems in the past year, according to federal safety statistics. (AP Photo / David Zalubowski, File)
GOLDEN, Colo. – Prosecutors on Friday charged 40 counts, including four counts of homicide, against a 23-year-old truck driver, accused of causing an overcrowding. fire that killed four people on a Colorado highway last week.
Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos of Houston "drove the vehicle in circumstances where he showed extreme indifference to the value of human life," said Jefferson District Attorney Pete Weir.
Defense lawyer Robert Corry called the charges "excessive, redundant and excessive abuse".
The truck was traveling at least 137 km / h on a portion of Interstate 70, where commercial vehicles are limited to 72 km / h, the police said.
Aguilera-Mederos told investigators that the brakes on his trailer had failed. He engulfed himself in vehicles on a crowded highway on April 25, just after his descent from the mountains to the west of Denver, unleashing a chain reaction of 28 vehicles causing explosions caused by tanks of water. Petrol broke, the authorities said.
Just prior to the accident, police announced that the truck had crossed a roadside ramp designed to safely stop trucks and other vehicles that lost their brakes.
The speed truck had a "free and clear path" towards the ramp but was moving away instead, the police said.
The trailer was destroyed in the accident, making mechanical inspection impossible, but investigators were trying to determine if there were other ways to check if the brakes were working, a Weir said.
Aguilera-Mederos was informed of these charges during a court appearance Friday, after appearing in video court.
The charges also include six counts of first degree assault and 24 counts of attempted first degree assault. Of the 40 counts, 36 are crimes, Weir said.
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