The Bayamón Court imposed a bail of $ 2 million on Thursday to former insurance broker Pablo Casellas Toro, after the order to hold a new trial against him for the murder of his wife Carmen Paredes.
If he posts bail, Casellas Toro will be able to get out of prison after serving six years, from a sentence of 109. This bail is less than the one that was imposed when he was originally charged in September 2012. At the time, it was $ 4 million .
Relive the bail view:
Casellas Toro appeared this afternoon before Judge Marta Rosario Santana, of room 501 of the Bayamón Court of First Instance, but did not have to reach the Judicial Center. The hearing was held by videoconference, due to the emergency measures adopted by the Office of Administration of Courts for the coronavirus COVID-19. However, at first, the transmission by the YouTube channel of the Judicial Branch confronted multiple technical problems that made it difficult to hear the arguments, which was later resolved.
It remains to be seen how long it would take Casellas Toro to post the bond and complete the process before the Office of Services in Advance of Trial (OSAJ).
Preliminarily, Judge Rosario Santana set the start of the new trial for July 15 of this year. But before that, there will be a status hearing on June 23, when it would be determined whether the start of the trial will move.
During the hearing, the point of greatest contention was the amount of the deposit. Prosecutors Phoebe Isales and Janet Parra requested that the same $ 4 million bond be imposed in 2012.
Parra said the Court of Appeals order “takes” the proceedings back to the previous stage of the trial, when he was on bail of $ 4 million. In addition, Isales noted that the court has already “judged that it was fair.”
Meanwhile, the lawyer Harry Padilla said that it was not appropriate to establish the same bond, which he described as “unreasonable”. He added that the appellate forum had ordered a hearing precisely so that a bond would be set or else it would have indicated that it be reinstated.
Likewise, Padilla argued that the bond only seeks to be a guarantee of appearance. In this sense, he stressed that Casellas Toro never failed to comply with the conditions in the almost 17 months that he was on bail.
Padilla also noted that in 2012 the purchasing power of Casellas Toro’s father, federal judge Salvador Casellas, who died in 2017, was taken into consideration.
For her part, Judge Rosario Santana indicated that she took Padilla’s argument into consideration, as well as that indicated by the Probation Office, which submitted a report in which it did not present failures of Casellas Toro to all the conditions imposed.
Given that scenario, the judge set bail of $ 1 million for the charge of first-degree murder, $ 500,000 for the charge of destruction of evidence and $ 500,000 for the charge of violation of the arms law, for a total of $ 2 million.
Isales went on to request a reconsideration, indicating that although Casellas Toro has had no income of his own while in prison, “the assets are inherited.”
To this, Padilla replied that the fact that someone who was no longer there was paid at that time “does not mean that it was a fair bond.”
Judge Rosario Santana remained in the position of the $ 2 million bond.
In turn, Padilla said that due to the suddenness of the Appellant’s decision, he had not been able to talk in depth with Casellas Toro, as well as with different relatives of his client.
The lawyer indicated that in the next few days he hopes to complete the process before OSAJ to identify who will be the custodian before the court who will be responsible for Casellas Toro in case he pays the bond.
The bail process arises from the Court of Appeals order to vacate the guilty verdict issued by a jury in January 2014, following the new regulations imposed on states and territories by the United States Supreme Court since last April in cases that were ongoing or in the process of appeal.
The federal Supreme Court determined that guilty verdicts in serious cases must be by unanimous vote, both in the federal and state spheres, so that they are in compliance with the United States Constitution of.
Casellas Toro was convicted by majority, with a vote of 11-1, by a jury made up of six men and six women, on January 22, 2014.
Paredes’ shot body was found on the morning of July 14, 2012 at his residence in Guaynabo.
In January 2013, Casellas Toro opted for his trial to be by jury. From that moment, the defense of Casellas Toro – son of the deceased federal judge Salvador Casellas – submitted requests that the trial comply with the unanimity requirement, in compliance with the United States Constitution.
In 2015, the argument was accepted by the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals, in light of the Sánchez Valle case, but the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico reversed it.
Following the decision of the federal Supreme Court last April, Casellas Toro requested the annulment of the verdict, which was accepted by the Court of Appeals.
The island’s intermediate judicial forum determined that “the verdicts issued against Mr. Pablo J. Casellas Toro are null and void on the charges of first-degree murder, destruction of evidence and for the violation of article 5.15 of the Arms Law” .
“Consequently, the case is returned to the primary forum for the holding of a new trial against Mr. Casellas Toro for the three crimes mentioned,” the court said.
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