LIHUE — Prosecutors have dropped attempted-murder, robbery and firearms charges against a 25-year-old Lihue resident who was accused of shooting a man in a drug deal gone wrong last year.
William Cuadros pleaded no contest Thursday to second-degree assault, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of five years in jail. He had faced a potential sentence of life without parole for the charges initially brought against him — second-degree attempted murder, first-degree robbery and carrying or use of a firearm in the commission of a separate felony.
Cuadros was arrested last June in connection with a shooting that had taken place six months before near Salt Pond Beach Park.
According to a memorandum filed by Kauai County prosecutors, the shooting victim had placed an ad on Craigslist to sell medical marijuana and arranged via email to meet with a potential buyer in an area near Salt Pond around 8:30 on the night of Jan. 11, 2018.
At the appointed time, someone pulled up next to the victim’s vehicle in a white Ford F-150 truck, “got out and started shooting at the complainant,” the memo said.
In the filing, prosecutors said Google and Craigslist records show the victim’s prospective customer had registered with Craigslist under the name “Aiza Smith,” using an email account created three days before the shooting and deleted less than a half hour after.
On June 25, Kauai Police officers searched a white Ford F-150 registered to Cuadros’ girlfriend, Amaleen Almazan, and “recovered a black memo pad which contained notes that said aizasmith420@gmail.com,” as well as a list of “marijuana products,” according to the memo.
Police arrested Cuadros and Almazan in connection with the attempted murder and their cases began to work their way through the court system. What happened along the way to convince prosecutors to amend the charges is unclear.
Almazan pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge and was sentenced in February to a year of probation. A month later, charges against Cuadros were either dropped or amended.
A motion filed by prosecutors in December may give some clue as to how evidence unfolded. In the motion, First Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Jennifer Winn asked the court to exclude evidence of previous crimes allegedly committed by Devin Cuadros, apparently a relative of William Cuadros.
“The state anticipates that defendant may allege that the crimes at issue were committed by Devin Cuadros,” Winn wrote, describing evidence of Devin Cuadros committing minor offenses such as “being truant or absent from school or getting poor grades” as irrelevant and “an improper reason on which the jury to base its verdict.”
William Cuadros’ public defender, Stephanie Char, said she wanted to explain what happened in her client’s case but preferred to wait until after sentencing, scheduled for June.
In response to a question about why prosecutors agreed to modify and reduce the charges against Cuadros so drastically, she only said, “we did a lot of investigation and a lot of work in preparation for this case.”
When asked whether there was any substance to a rumor that Cuadros’ brother had in fact been responsible for the alleged attempted murder, Char paused for a beat and said, “that was an issue that came up.”
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Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.
