Prosecutors want GPS monitor on truck driver in deadly crash

Prosecutors say they only learned after a judge set $400,000 bond for a truck driver accused of causing a fiery pileup that killed four people on a Colorado highway that he had tried to flee the scene of the collision.

In a filing Monday, they asked a judge to require that the now-released man be required to wear a GPS monitoring device.

Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos, 23, of Houston, was released over the weekend after being charged with four counts of vehicular homicide and other crimes in the April 25 collision near Denver.

FILE - This file photo provided by the Lakewood Police Department on Friday, April 26, 2019, shows Rogel Lazaro Aguilera-Mederos. Prosecutors, on Monday, May 20, 2019, want a judge to require a GPS monitor for Aguilera-Mederos, now that he has posted bail. Aguilera-Mederos, a truck driver, is accused of causing a fiery pileup on April 25, that killed four people on a Colorado highway. (Lakewood Police Department via AP, File)

Police have said the truck was going at least 85 mph (137 kph) on a part of Interstate 70 where commercial vehicles are limited to 45 mph (72 kph). Authorities described the resulting crash as a 28-vehicle chain reaction wreck that ruptured gas tanks, causing flames that consumed several vehicles and melted parts of the highway just after it descends from mountains west of Denver.

Jefferson County district attorney spokeswoman Pam Russell said Tuesday that she could not provide more information about investigators' conclusion that Aguilera-Mederos tried to leave the scene.

Robert Corry, Aguilera-Mederos' attorney, did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Tuesday.

According to previously filed court documents, Aguilera-Mederos spoke to police at a hospital where he was treated for injuries he received in the crash. The document says he was transported to the hospital for treatment and then taken to a police department for more questioning.

Aguilera-Mederos was released from jail Saturday after paying bond, which is typically 10% of the total amount set by a judge. Corry, his defense attorney, has said the crash was an accident caused by a mechanical failure of the truck his client was driving.

Authorities have said the semitrailer was destroyed in the crash, making a mechanical inspection impossible.

Prosecutors, though, have argued that Aguilera-Mederos showed "extreme indifference to the value of human life."

A judge has not scheduled a hearing yet on prosecutors' request for GPS monitoring. KDVR-TV first reported the request.

According to the court's original order, Aguilera-Mederos cannot drive commercial vehicles and must remain in Colorado while out on bond.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn’t order the death of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in February, according to an official familiar with the determination.

While U.S. officials believe Putin was ultimately responsible for the death of Navalny, who endured brutal conditions during his confinement, the intelligence community has found “no smoking gun” that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death — which came soon before the Russian president's reelection — or directly ordered it, according to the official.

The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.

Soon after Navalny’s death, U.S. President Joe Biden said Putin was ultimately responsible but did not accuse the Russian president of directly ordering it.

At the time, Biden said the U.S. did not know exactly what had happened to Navalny but that “there is no doubt” that his death “was the consequence of something that Putin and his thugs did.”

Navalny, 47, Russia’s best-known opposition politician and Putin’s most persistent foe, died Feb. 16 in a remote penal colony above the Arctic Circle while serving a 19-year sentence on extremism charges that he rejected as politically motivated.

He had been behind bars since January 2021 after returning to Russia from Germany, where he had been recovering from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin.

Russian officials have said only that Navalny died of natural causes and have vehemently denied involvement both in the poisoning and in his death.

In March, a month after Navalny’s death, Putin won a landslide reelection for a fifth term, an outcome that was never in doubt.

The Wall Street Journal first reported about the U.S. intelligence determination.

FILE - Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny gestures while speaking during his interview to the Associated Press in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 18, 2017. U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin likely didn't order the death of Navalny, the imprisoned opposition leader, in February of 2024. An official says the U.S. intelligence community has found "no smoking gun" that Putin was aware of the timing of Navalny's death or directly ordered it. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)