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A 28-year-old Denver truck driver was sentenced to 11 years in prison Friday for a deadly Interstate 25 crash that killed a Wyoming family of five.
Jesus Puebla was sentenced to 11 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections by 19th Judicial District Judge Allison Esser, according to court records and the Weld County district attorney’s office.
Puebla was convicted of five counts of vehicular homicide after a jury trial in April for the deaths of Emiliano and Christina Godines, 51 and 47; their son Aaron, 20; his wife, Halie Everts, 20; and their 3-month-old daughter, Tessleigh Godinez.
Puebla also was convicted of vehicular assault, careless driving, reckless driving and two commercial traffic violations.
Puebla was driving a 1999 Kenworth T800 box truck on the afternoon of June 13, 2022, when he crashed into a 2015 Ford Edge driven by Aaron Godinez as the family returned home to Gillette, Wyo., according to previous reporting.
The crash occurred on northbound Interstate 25 near Colorado 66, and Puebla collided with two other vehicles in the crash. A Greeley man in one of the other vehicles also was injured.
“These families have had to deal with the trauma and this devastating loss every single day,” Deputy District Attorney Yvette Guthrie said in a statement. “Absolutely nothing that this defendant did the day of this tragic crash was an accident. This wasn’t road rage; this was traffic terrorism.”
Puebla’s attorney, James Colgan, said Puebla’s family plans to appeal the conviction.
“Overall I think the judge’s sentence was fair, but I think it would have been much fairer if certain pieces of evidence were allowed in,” Colgan said.
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