"Poor Thing. He Died." The Monique Trucking Disaster and the 16X Driver Deportee

A driver with 16 prior deportations, a company evading federal oversight, and systematic safety violations that turned 80,000 pounds of steel into a weapon on a Colorado highway.

Manrique Agramon’s response to Scott Miller’s death tells you everything you need to know. When 9NEWS investigators called him after the crash, asking about the 64-year-old man his driver had killed on Highway 285, Agramon said in Spanish: “Well, what can I say? Poor thing. He died.”

Poor thing. He died.

Not “I’m sorry.” Not “this is devastating.” Not “we take full responsibility.” Just a shrug in Spanish and three words that capture the complete indifference of a man who ran a trucking company, like safety regulations were optional suggestions.

The driver who killed Scott Miller had been deported from the United States sixteen times. Sixteen. His CDL had been downgraded four months before the crash. The truck had no ELD. The company had no drug testing program. Agramon had been actively evading federal safety audits for nearly two years. When authorities finally caught up with him, they’d discover he’d even tried to operate under a fake company identity to keep his trucks rolling while under federal shutdown orders.

According to the FMCSA Imminent Hazard Order, it was “TPO Transports“ with USDOT number 3894417. (TPO is still authorized as of this day.)

On May 1, 2024, when one of Agramon’s drivers was stopped during a roadside inspection (while Monique Trucking was already under a federal out-of-service order), the driver showed officers a handwritten poster board sign with “3894417 TPO Transports” written on it.

When investigators questioned Agramon about this during the June 2024 compliance review, he admitted that he had “suggested using the TPO Transport sign so that Monique Trucking could get loads under TPO” while evading the federal shutdown.

This was a case of fraud. Attempting to operate under a different DOT number to circumvent the out-of-service order.

This is a story about willful negligence, regulatory evasion, immigration enforcement failures, and a collision between broken systems that left one man dead and exposed failures at every level of oversight.

The Crash

June 11, 2024. Highway 285 near Conifer, Colorado. Mountain terrain, winding roads, a 45 mph zone designed to keep heavy trucks under control on dangerous curves. Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza was driving a Monique Trucking semi loaded with steel pipes and angle iron. He was going at least 65 mph, twenty miles over the limit.

Cruz-Mendoza attempted to pass multiple vehicles on that two-lane highway. He drove off the edge of the road. The semi rolled onto its side. Forty-seven thousand pounds of steel pipes and angle iron broke loose and scattered across the highway like deadly missiles, cascading onto five other vehicles. The metal kept flying. The trucks kept colliding. When it finally stopped, Scott Miller, a 64-year-old man who’d been driving south, probably thinking about dinner or what he’d do that evening, was dead at the scene. Another person was seriously injured. Multiple others were hurt. Cruz-Mendoza walked away without a scratch.

Colorado State Patrol arrested him two days later. The charges, vehicular homicide, vehicular assault, reckless driving, and driving a commercial vehicle without a CDL. That last charge would prove to be just the beginning.

The 16 Deportations

When Immigration and Customs Enforcement ran Cruz-Mendoza’s information, what they found should terrify every person who shares the road with commercial trucks.

Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza, 47, a Mexican national, had first entered the United States illegally sometime before 2002. That April, he was arrested in Jefferson County, Oregon on local charges. An immigration judge in Portland ordered him removed to Mexico on May 29, 2002. That should have been the end of the story.

It wasn’t even close to the end.

Cruz-Mendoza was deported on September 10, 2004. Ten days later, he reentered the United States illegally. Since that first deportation order in 2002, Cruz-Mendoza had either been forcibly removed from the U.S. or voluntarily returned to Mexico sixteen times. Sixteen separate instances where the system identified him, processed him, and sent him back across the border. And sixteen times, he returned.

His criminal history in the United States includes convictions for DUI, drug possession, careless driving resulting in death, and careless driving resulting in injury. At the time he killed Scott Miller, Cruz-Mendoza was under active deportation orders. He had no legal right to be in the country. He certainly had no legal right to be operating an 80,000-pound commercial vehicle, but there he was, behind the wheel, hauling steel through Colorado, because Manrique Agramon hired him anyway.

The CDL That Wasn’t

Cruz-Mendoza’s Commercial Driver’s License had been downgraded to non-commercial status on February 10, 2024, four months before the crash. His medical certificate had expired, which triggered an automatic downgrade. He was no longer legally qualified to operate a commercial motor vehicle. Period.

Manrique Agramon hired him anyway on April 10, 2024, two months after the downgrade. Either Agramon never checked Cruz-Mendoza’s CDL status, or he checked it and didn’t care. Based on everything investigators would later discover, my money’s on the latter.

When Colorado State Patrol examined the wreckage on June 11, they found no electronic logging device in the truck. Federal law has required ELDs in commercial vehicles since December 2017. That’s seven years of mandatory compliance. But Cruz-Mendoza’s truck had nothing. No ELD. No paper logs. No record of duty status whatsoever. Nobody knew how long he’d been driving that day. Nobody knew when he’d last slept. Nobody knew anything, because Agramon didn’t require his drivers to keep any records at all.

This wasn’t the first time. A May 1, 2024 roadside inspection, just 41 days before the fatal crash, had caught one of Agramon’s trucks operating in violation of a federal out-of-service order for failure to permit a safety audit. The driver in that stop? Another Monique Trucking employee who showed officers something remarkable: a handwritten poster board sign reading “3894417 TPO Transports.”

When investigators asked Agramon about this during their June compliance investigation, he admitted he’d suggested using the TPO Transports sign “so that Monique Trucking could get loads under TPO” while evading the federal shutdown. That’s not corner-cutting. That’s fraud. That’s actively attempting to deceive federal regulators to continue illegal operations.

Meet Manrique Agramon

Manrique Agramon operated Monique Trucking LLC out of an apartment at 82510 Requa Avenue, Apartment 4, in Indio, California, a desert city in Riverside County near Palm Springs. According to California Secretary of State records filed in September 2022, Agramon listed himself as the sole Manager, Member, and CEO of the LLC. The company’s stated business: “TRUCKING.”

FMCSA records show Monique Trucking employed two drivers and operated two power units. Small outfit. But as I’ve covered this industry for years, I’ve learned that size means nothing when it comes to safety culture. Some of the best operators I know run three trucks. Some of the worst violations I’ve seen came from one-truck outfits. Agramon’s operation fell spectacularly into the latter category.

When FMCSA investigators completed their compliance investigation on June 25, 2024, what they found wasn’t just violations, it was a complete absence of any safety management whatsoever. The agency’s order uses language I’ve rarely seen in federal documents: “FMCSA’s investigation reveals a complete failure of Monique Trucking and its owner to implement any aspect of a Safety Management Plan.”

Not “deficiencies.” Not “violations.” A complete failure to implement any aspect of safety management. Let’s break down what that means:

Agramon had never implemented a controlled substances and alcohol testing program. None. Zero. Not in 2022. Not in 2023. Not in 2024. He wasn’t conducting random testing. He wasn’t doing pre-employment testing. He wasn’t testing drivers after crashes. When investigators asked him about it, Agramon said, and I’m quoting from the federal order here, “I didn’t know I had to do drug tests.”

Drug testing requirements have been a federal law since 1988. The FMCSA Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse has been mandatory since January 2020. This isn’t new. This isn’t obscure. Every legitimate trucking operation is aware of drug testing. Agramon either didn’t know or didn’t care, and based on everything else, I’m betting on the latter.

Because Agramon wasn’t registered in the Clearinghouse, he had no way of knowing if his drivers had failed drug tests at previous employers. The Clearinghouse exists specifically to prevent drivers who test positive for drugs from simply moving to another carrier. But it only works if carriers actually register and check it. Agramon never did.

That means Cruz-Mendoza, with his history of drug possession convictions and sixteen deportations, could have failed a dozen drug tests at other companies, and Agramon would never know. He never checked.

Federal regulations require carriers to maintain comprehensive driver qualification files. Employment applications. Driving record checks. License verification. Medical certificates. Previous employment verification. It’s not complicated, every legitimate carrier does it. Agramon didn’t do any of it.

When asked about his hiring process, Agramon told investigators he collected a copy of the driver’s CDL card and sent it to his insurance company. Sometimes. He admitted that on “specific occasions,” he failed even to send the information to the insurance company. He never sent any information about Cruz-Mendoza, the driver involved in the fatal crash.

He hired Cruz-Mendoza on April 10, 2024, two months after Cruz-Mendoza’s CDL had been downgraded. A simple check of Cruz-Mendoza’s license status would have shown he wasn’t qualified. Agramon either never checked or ignored what he found.

Agramon told investigators he was aware ELDs were required but “never installed them.” He also stated he “never learned to do RODS” (records of duty status), and that he left it up to drivers to figure out logs themselves, including telling them “to ask around” about how to complete records of duty status. He said he couldn’t be “chasing them around” about compliance.

That’s not safety management. That’s abdication of responsibility.

Between October 2022 and June 2024, Monique Trucking drivers had five roadside inspections. They were placed out of service at four of those five stops for hours-of-service violations. No ELDs. No paper logs. No records at all. And Agramon just kept sending them out.

Cruz-Mendoza had no ELD on the day of the crash. No paper logs. No record of how long he’d been driving. We’ll never know if fatigue played a role in killing Scott Miller, because Agramon’s “leave it up to the drivers” approach meant no records existed.

This is where Agramon’s cavalier attitude becomes almost cartoonish, except it’s not funny because a man died.

When investigators asked about vehicle maintenance records during the June 2024 compliance review, Agramon told them he’d thrown the papers away. His exact words, according to the federal order: “It’s a bunch of paperwork; nobody keeps papers anymore.”

Yes, Manrique, people keep papers. It’s federal law. Those records prove your trucks are safe. They prove your brakes work. They prove your tires aren’t bald. They prove you’re not sending death traps down the highway.

During the investigation, Agramon managed to produce a white plastic bag with “some invoices and receipts.” The majority were from 2022. Only five were from 2023. None were from 2024.

The post-crash roadside inspection of Cruz-Mendoza’s truck on June 11 found four out-of-service violations for tire issues and one for a destroyed air suspension airbag. The vehicle was also cited for “Cargo - Damaged securement devices/tiedowns: 8, 4” nylon tiedowns all failed.”

Remember those steel pipes that killed Scott Miller? The ones that broke loose and scattered across the highway? Yeah, the tiedowns were damaged. Agramon’s inspection history shows a prior violation for insufficient tiedowns. He knew this was a problem. He didn’t fix it.

The Game

Here’s where it gets truly infuriating. The California Highway Patrol identified problems with Monique Trucking as far back as October 2022, twenty months before the fatal crash. CHP began contacting Agramon to schedule a required New Entrant Safety Audit. This is routine. Every carrier has to undergo these audits. It’s not optional.

Agramon didn’t want to be audited.

So in November 2023, he told a CHP officer that he wasn’t operating and was “out of business.” Based on that representation, Monique Trucking was inactivated on November 15, 2023. The company was officially shut down.

Except that Agramon kept running trucks.

Bills of lading obtained during the June 2024 investigation show that Monique Trucking accepted multiple interstate loads between December 1 and December 14, 2023, while officially “out of business.”

Then on December 15, 2023, Agramon reactivated the company by filing an updated MCS-150 form with FMCSA. The system let him back in. CHP again tried to schedule a safety audit. Again, Agramon ignored them.

On April 16, 2024, FMCSA issued a formal Out-of-Service Order for “Failure to permit a Safety Audit.” This isn’t a suggestion. This is a federal order: Your trucks are prohibited from moving. Your drivers cannot drive. You are shut down.

Agramon ignored it.

On May 1, 2024, just 46 days before Cruz-Mendoza killed Scott Miller, a roadside inspection caught a Monique Trucking driver operating in violation of the federal out-of-service order. The officer informed the driver that Monique Trucking was under a federal shutdown. The driver’s response? He produced a handwritten poster board sign reading “3894417 TPO Transports” and claimed he was operating under that DOT number instead.

When investigators asked Agramon about this in June, he admitted suggesting the driver use the TPO Transports sign “so that Monique Trucking could get loads under TPO.”

Think about that. Agramon was under federal orders to cease all operations. Instead of complying, he instructed his drivers to display a different DOT number on a homemade sign to evade the shutdown. That’s not negligence. That’s deliberate fraud.

Agramon filed another updated MCS-150 in late May 2024, and the system automatically reinstated his DOT number on June 3, 2024. Eight days later, Cruz-Mendoza killed Scott Miller.

“Poor Thing. He Died.”

After the crash, 9NEWS Investigates reached Agramon by phone. They told him his driver had killed someone. They asked him about Scott Miller’s death. Agramon’s response, in Spanish: “Well, what can I say? Poor thing. He died.” Not an apology. Not remorse. Not accountability. Just “Poor thing. He died.”

Then 9NEWS asked about the crash itself and Cruz-Mendoza’s license status. Agramon claimed his driver was licensed but “didn’t have it on him.” That was a lie. Cruz-Mendoza’s CDL had been downgraded four months earlier. Agramon either never checked or was lying to reporters. Based on the pattern of deception investigators documented, I know which one I believe.

The Fed Hammer

On July 2, 2024, three weeks after the crash, the FMCSA served Manrique Agramon and Monique Trucking with an Imminent Hazard Operations Out-of-Service Order.

Effective immediately, Monique Trucking was ordered to cease all operations. No more trucks. No more loads. Done.

Violations of the order carry civil penalties up to $33,252 per day. If violations are determined to be willful, criminal penalties may be imposed, including fines up to $25,000 and imprisonment for up to one year.

The proposed safety rating from the June 2024 compliance investigation: Unsatisfactory.

As of this writing, Monique Trucking remains shut down. FMCSA’s SAFER system shows the company as “Not Allowed to operate.” The imminent hazard order remains in effect.

What Happened to Cruz-Mendoza

Ignacio Cruz-Mendoza pleaded guilty in July 2024 to one count of careless driving resulting in death and three counts of careless driving resulting in injury. On August 30, 2024, he was sentenced to 364 days in Jefferson County Jail. 364 DAYS!

He served about seven to eight months, getting out early for good behavior or overcrowding or whatever reason we let people out early these days. On March 30, 2025, Cruz-Mendoza was released from the Jefferson County Detention Center. He never made it past the jail lobby.

ICE agents were waiting for him. Scott Miller’s widow, DeAnn Miller, had made sure of it. She’d contacted ICE to ensure they’d be there when Cruz-Mendoza was released. She wanted to make certain he couldn’t hurt anyone else.

“I don’t think he deserves to be in this country and kill somebody else,” DeAnn Miller told 9NEWS. “I applaud ICE for doing their job and taking him out of this country. He doesn’t belong here.”

Cruz-Mendoza was transferred to the ICE Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, where he awaited his seventeenth removal from the United States. Before he was deported, lawyers representing victims of the crash hand-delivered lawsuits to Cruz-Mendoza at the detention facility. They had about 24 hours to serve him before he’d be beyond U.S. jurisdiction forever.

On April 16, 2025, ICE officers removed Cruz-Mendoza to Mexico. His seventeenth deportation. After sixteen previous removals. After DUI convictions. After drug possession charges. After killing a man on a Colorado highway.

He’s gone now. But the question remains, How did he keep getting back in? And how did he end up driving a truck for a company that never should have hired him?

Scott Miller is dead. His widow DeAnn is left to grieve and fight for justice. Other people injured in that crash are dealing with medical bills, trauma, and the physical and emotional scars of surviving something that never should have happened.

Multiple lawsuits have been filed against both Cruz-Mendoza and Monique Trucking. The civil liability is staggering, including wrongful death, personal injury, medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering. We’re talking millions in potential judgments but Agramon carried $1 million in bodily injury and property damage insurance. Industry sources reported the company was facing insurance cancellation. Given the systematic violations and the fact that Agramon never disclosed Cruz-Mendoza’s information to his insurance company, there are serious questions about whether those policies will even pay out.

If the insurance is invalidated due to fraud or misrepresentation, Agramon could be personally liable for every dollar. That could follow him for the rest of his life. Blood out of a turnip is difficult to get.

Some states have successfully prosecuted company owners for vehicular manslaughter or negligent homicide when their safety violations directly contribute to deaths. California and Colorado should both be looking at criminal charges. When a company owner actively evades federal safety audits for two years, lies about being out of business, tells drivers to use fake company identities, hires drivers with downgraded licenses, and someone dies as a direct result, that crosses the line from negligence into criminal conduct.

The Systematic Failures

This case represents failures at every level of the system designed to protect us from exactly this type of tragedy.

1. How does someone get deported sixteen times and keep coming back? How does someone with active deportation orders get hired to drive commercial vehicles? Cruz-Mendoza first came to ICE’s attention in 2002. He’d been in and out of the system for 22 years. At some point, we have to ask whether our immigration enforcement system is functionally capable of keeping people out after multiple deportations.

2. Cruz-Mendoza’s CDL was downgraded in February 2024. Agramon hired him in April 2024. That’s two months where the system should have caught this. Checking CDL status isn’t complicated, it’s a database query. But if carriers don’t check, and there’s no automatic verification at the point of hire, the system fails.

3. The Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse was supposed to solve the problem of drivers with positive drug tests simply moving to new employers. But it only works if carriers actually register and check it. What’s the penalty for not registering? Apparently not enough, because Agramon wasn’t registered and continued to operate for years.

4. Agramon was placed out of service on April 16, 2024. Cruz-Mendoza killed Scott Miller on June 11, 2024. That’s 56 days where Monique Trucking operated in direct violation of a federal shutdown order. One inspection on May 1 caught them, but the trucks continued to roll. Where was the enforcement mechanism to physically prevent those trucks from operating?

5. CHP began auditing Monique Trucking in October 2022. The fatal crash happened in June 2024. That’s 20 months. Twenty months where Agramon evaded, lied, claimed to be out of business, reactivated, and continued to operate trucks. The timeline from the first red flag to the fatal crash was too long.

6. Between October 2022 and June 2024, Monique Trucking underwent six inspections, resulting in multiple out-of-service violations. Drivers without valid licenses. No ELDs. No logs. Insufficient tiedowns. How many red flags does it take before a carrier gets shut down, before someone dies?

The Questions We Need Answered

1. Civil penalties and shutting down his company aren’t enough. When willful regulatory evasion leads to death, prosecutors should be considering criminal negligent homicide or vehicular manslaughter charges against the company owner.

2. The company employed two drivers. We know about Cruz-Mendoza. Who was the other one? Are they cooperating with investigators? Are they facing charges?

3. The TPO Transports scheme suggests he’s willing to use fake identities to evade oversight. Is he trying to operate under other names or DOT numbers? FMCSA needs to ensure he’s not just setting up shop under a different company.

4. Did Agramon disclose his violation history? Did he tell them about the out-of-service orders? If not, those policies might be void, leaving victims unable to collect damages. Insurance companies need to be held accountable for inadequate underwriting of high-risk carriers.

5. He told CHP he was out of business in November 2023, got inactivated, kept operating illegally, then filed a new MCS-150 in December and was automatically reactivated. There needs to be a flag system that prevents carriers who lied about shutting down from simply reactivating with a form.

6. He was deported sixteen times and kept coming back. At what point do we acknowledge that deportation alone isn’t working for repeat offenders? Should there be criminal prosecution for repeated illegal entry? Should there be additional monitoring?

The Lessons We Should Learn (But Probably Won’t)

Every trucking safety regulation on the books exists because someone died without it. The hours of service rules. The drug testing requirements. The ELD mandate. The CDL qualification standards. The safety audit requirements. Every single one was written in blood.

Scott Miller is dead because Manrique Agramon decided those regulations didn’t apply to him. Because he threw away maintenance records. Because he never learned about logs. Because he hired a driver with sixteen deportations whose CDL had been downgraded. Because he told his drivers to use fake company signs to evade federal shutdown orders.

For carriers reading this: The rules aren’t suggestions. Drug testing isn’t optional. Driver qualification isn’t optional. Vehicle maintenance isn’t optional. ELD compliance isn’t optional. You can’t decide that “nobody keeps papers anymore” and throw away your maintenance records. You can’t tell investigators that your company is out of business and then continue to operate trucks. You can’t tell your drivers to use fake DOT numbers when you’re under federal shutdown orders.

When you cut corners on safety, you’re not just risking fines. You’re risking lives.

For drivers reading this, If your carrier doesn’t have ELDs, doesn’t do drug tests, doesn’t maintain trucks, doesn’t keep proper records, and tells you to evade federal enforcement, walk away. I don’t care how hard jobs are to find. I don’t care how many bills you have to pay. When something goes wrong, you’re the one going to jail. Cruz-Mendoza learned that the hard way.

For regulators reading this, the timeline from the first red flag in October 2022 to the fatal crash in June 2024 was too long. Agramon evaded oversight for nearly two years. He lied about shutting down. He operated during an out-of-service order. He told drivers to use fake company identities. And the system didn’t stop him until after someone died. That needs to be fixed.

For prosecutors reading this, when a company owner actively evades safety oversight for years, lies to federal authorities, instructs drivers to commit fraud, and someone dies as a direct result, that’s not just civil liability. That’s criminal. Scott Miller’s death wasn’t an unavoidable accident. It was the predictable result of willful regulatory evasion. Someone needs to be held criminally accountable.

The Man Who Should Still Be Here

Scott Miller was 64 years old. He’d raised a family. He’d built a life. He was driving south on Highway 285 near Conifer, Colorado, on June 11, 2024, minding his own business, following the rules, doing nothing wrong.

He didn’t know that someone with sixteen deportations was driving the truck behind him. He didn’t know the driver’s CDL had been downgraded. He didn’t know there was no ELD tracking hours. He didn’t know the truck hadn’t been properly maintained. He didn’t know the tiedowns securing the steel pipes were damaged. He didn’t know the company owner had been evading federal oversight for two years.

Scott Miller trusted that the trucking safety regulations designed to protect him were being followed. He trusted that drivers on the road were qualified and rested. He trusted that the trucks around him were safe. He trusted the system.

The system failed him.

When 9NEWS called Manrique Agramon after the crash, when they told him a man was dead, Agramon said: “Poor thing. He died.” That’s all Scott Miller’s life was worth to the man whose company killed him. A shrug. Three words in Spanish. Poor thing. He died.

Scott Miller deserved better. His widow deserved better. The people injured in that crash deserved better. Every person who shares the road with commercial trucks deserves better.

Monique Trucking is shut down. Cruz-Mendoza is deported, but Manrique Agramon is still out there. And somewhere, right now, there’s another small carrier evading safety audits, another driver with a downgraded license behind the wheel, another owner who thinks “nobody keeps papers anymore.” The next Scott Miller is already out there, driving on some highway, completely unaware that he’s sharing the road with someone who thinks safety regulations are optional.

I’ll keep investigating these cases. I’ll continue asking questions and writing about what happens when the system fails, because pretending this was just an unfortunate accident is unacceptable.

“Poor thing. He died.”

Three words that should haunt every carrier who’s ever considered cutting corners. Three words that should drive prosecutors to file criminal charges. Three words that should remind all of us why these safety regulations exist. The next time you hear those words, it might be about someone you love.