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Posted: 11:47 AM- A man charged with killing three members of a Utah family and injuring three others in a drunken driving crash has no previous DUI convictions or arrests, according to police.
Booking records at the Salt Lake County jail originally indicated that 24-year-old Carlos Rodolfo Prieto had been arrested twice before on suspicion of drunken driving, an allegation that was widely reported by the news media.
But a spokesman for the Murray Police Department said Thursday that there is no documentation backing up that information and there likely was a typo in the jail's records.
Police say Prieto was driving drunk early Dec. 24 when he ran a red light at 700 West and 5400 South in Murray. His pickup struck a passenger car occupied by six members of the Ceran family, of Cedar Hills in Utah County.
The three front-seat passengers - Cheryl Ceran, 47, and two of her children, Ian, 15, and Julianna, 7 - were killed. Injured were Cheryl Ceran's husband, Gary Ceran, 45, and their daughter Clarissa, 19, and a son, Caleb, 12. The three were treated at a hospital and released.
Prieto is being held in lieu of $500,000 bond on three counts of automobile homicide and two counts of driving under the influence and causing serious bodily injury, all third-degree felonies. He also is charged with one count each of class A misdemeanor DUI with injury and class C misdemeanor driving on an expired license.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says Prieto entered the country illegally and has put a detainer on him. That means he will go into ICE custody and be deported after he has served a sentence or been acquitted of the criminal charges.
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice says her agency first learned of Prieto after his Dec. 24 arrest. The Mexican national has not been previously detained or deported by the agency, she said.
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