A 53-year-old man who pleaded guilty in the fatal crash that killed 13-year-old Alex Mackiewicz of Highlands Ranch while the boy was on his way to school was sentenced to one year in jail by a Douglas County District Court judge on Tuesday.
Ruben Morones pleaded guilty to careless driving resulting in death, a traffic offense, for the fatal March 6 crash and was sentenced to the maximum penalty allowed by Colorado law, Douglas County officials said at a briefing Tuesday.
“The system is very broken when the most severe consequence for careless driving resulting in death is a $1,000 fine and a year in jail,” Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly said after the hearing.
Morones ran a red light and hit Alex while he was in the crosswalk near Venneford Ranch Road and Highlands Ranch Parkway, according to police reports. He died at the scene.
Alex’s mother, Victoria Cegielski, said she wants to change state law so that crashes like this are classified as involuntary manslaughter, a felony.
“There is nothing minor about human life,” Cegielski said at a briefing after the hearing. “The punishment has to be proportional to the outcome of the crash.”
Weekly described the crash as “one of the most horrific crashes I’ve ever seen” and said he would work alongside Alex’s family and state lawmakers to make a change.
“We can do better as a state and start holding people accountable for their actions,” Weekly said.
An attorney for Morones could not immediately be reached for comment.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
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