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SALT LAKE CITY — A man charged in a double shooting that left one man dead and a 17-year-old boy paralyzed from the waist down has had the charges against him dismissed on the day before he was scheduled to go to trial.
Carlo Joseph Ayvacian Toledo, 40, of West Valley City, was charged in 2018 in 3rd District Court with murder, a first-degree felony, and six counts of discharge of a firearm, a third-degree felony.
He was accused in the February 2018 shooting death of Charles Baker, 49, of California. Toledo’s 15-year-old stepson had had an “interaction” with neighbors earlier that day, according to charging documents. Toledo told police he went over to that apartment after work to “discuss what happened,” the charges state, and ended up in a shootout with Baker.
Baker was killed and Toledo suffered gunshot wounds to his leg and chest, the charges state.
A three-day trial was scheduled to begin Thursday.
But on Wednesday, the day of a pretrial conference, prosecutors made a motion to have the case dismissed.
According to court documents, a judge in September agreed to reschedule the trial and pretrial conference for Wednesday afternoon after prosecutors stated that “in preparation for the upcoming trial the state conducted interviews with several of the state’s intended witnesses. Some of the state’s witnesses gave statements that were significantly different than previous statements and included previously unknown information which is exculpatory to defense.
“In light of this newly discovered information, the state needs more time to both conduct further investigation into the validity of these statements by seeking to reinterview select witnesses. The state also needs to reassess the case in detail to determine how to proceed at this point,” prosecutors wrote in their motion.
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Charges filed in shooting that left one dead, teen paralyzed
Charges have been filed in a February shooting that left one man dead and a 17-year-old boy paralyzed from the waist down.Prosecutors had asked to reschedule the trial, but when that motion was denied by a judge, chose to dismiss the charges out of “an abundance of caution” — and in light of a trial scheduled to start the next day — while they reevaluate the case, said Jeff Hall, a spokesman with the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s Office.
The case was dismissed without prejudice, which means prosecutors are able to file charges again at any time.
According to the motion, Toledo is currently in federal custody for violating the conditions of his supervised release. In 2009, Toledo was sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison followed by four years of supervised released starting in 2015 for his conviction on federal drug distribution and gun charges.
Toledo’s stepson, who was present during the shooting, according to charging documents, was Jerrad Jacobsen. Jacobsen was shot and killed in his Kearns house in March. The shooting was originally believed to be an accidental self-inflicted wound.
But a couple of days later, Jacobsen’s 15-year-old stepbrother was arrested for the shooting. He went on to admit to manslaughter, a second-degree felony, as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors and was sentenced to an indefinite term in a secure detention facility.
