DENVER — When Rogel Aguilera-Mederos posted a $400,000 bail Saturday night, many on social media assumed the 23-year-old might skip town to avoid trial for the Interstate 70 crash in which four people died last month.
The Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office was apparently concerned enough that it filed a motion Monday afternoon asking the judge to modify bond conditions so that the Cuban national living legally in the U.S. would have to wear a GPS ankle monitor to track his whereabouts.
However, FOX31 was able to track Aguilera-Mederos Tuesday afternoon to the law office of his defense attorney Rob Corry.
“I know Rogel, I know he’s a good person and I know he’s not going to flee,” said Corry.
Corry allowed the Problem Solvers to film his client and members of Corry’s defense team looking at a map of metro Denver. They traced the path where Aguilera-Mederos’ semitruck went from the mountains into the city before the 28-vehicle crash near I-70’s Denver West exit in Lakewood.
Aguilera-Mederos was ordered by a judge to surrender his passport if he posted bail and not to leave the state of Colorado. Corry says his client’s passport was in his truck and burned up in the fire, but insisted his client is complying with all of the judge’s bond conditions.
“He is here in Colorado. He is diligently spending every minute of every day working with us on preparing his defense,” said Corry, who said despite no family ties to Colorado, his client has no intentions of avoiding a high-profile trial. “There is no chance of him fleeing from justice. He is committed to seeing this through, one way or the other.”
A judge has set a hearing on May 31 to hear the DA’s motion to make Aguilera-Mederos wear a GPS tracking device.
Corry said it’s not necessary, as his client isn’t going anywhere and adds a GPS bracelet would do little to ensure future court appearances.
“A GPS unit has very limited value in preventing somebody from fleeing a jurisdiction or preventing somebody from not appearing in court because all a person needs to do is simply snip it off with the regular piece of scissors that anybody can get and then the GPS unit is off and the person can flee anyways,” said Corry.
A judge has set a preliminary hearing for July 11.