Colorado Judge Reduces Paramedic's Sentence in Elijah McClain Death Case

A Colorado judge has reduced paramedic Peter Cichuniec's prison sentence to four years probation in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain. Initially sentenced to five years, Cichuniec was convicted of criminally negligent homicide. The case gained renewed attention following George Floyd's death in 2020.

A Colorado judge on Friday reduced to probation the prison sentence of a paramedic convicted in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who died after police put him in a chokehold, The Denver Post reported.

Judge Mark Warner, who oversaw three trials concerning the death of McClain, who died after paramedics injected him with a powerful sedative, reduced the sentence of emergency medical worker Peter Cichuniec during a hearing to four years probation, the Post said. Warner in March had sentenced the paramedic to five years in prison, the longest sentence of any of the police and paramedics put on trial for McClain's death. It was not immediately clear when Cichuniec would be released.

"The court finds, really, there are unusual and extenuating circumstances and they are truly exceptional in this particular case," Warner said during a brief hearing, according to the Post. After hours requests for comment from the court were not returned, nor were requests for comment from the Colorado attorney general's office, which prosecuted the McClain cases, or lawyers for Cichuniec.

Jurors in December found Cichuniec, 51, guilty of criminally negligent homicide and also of assault in the second degree in a rare trial of paramedics in such a case. Cichuniec's partner, Jeremy Cooper, 49, was also found guilty of criminally negligent homicide, and was sentenced to 14 months of work release.

Their joint trial was the last of three stemming from the death of McClain, 23, who was not alleged to have committed any crime when officers stopped him. One police officer was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and sentenced to 14 months in jail. Two other police officers were acquitted.

Local prosecutors initially declined to file charges in the McClain case. That changed following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd, a Black man who died at the hands of Minneapolis police.

(With inputs from agencies.)