It appears that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is going to dismiss all criminal charges it previously filed against an Ontario man, Carlos Jimenez, growing out of an encounter he had with a federal agent, Eusebio Ortiz, on October 30, 2025.
In that incident, Ortiz shot Jimenez in the upper back after Ortiz claimed Jimenez angled his vehicle at him and attempted to run him and other federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officers down as they were preparing to carry out a raid on a South Ontario residence in which suspected undocumented immigrants were residing.
Jimenez, in whose shoulder a bullet is yet lodged because of medical complication, had been charged with felony assault on a federal officer. The U.S. Attorney’s Office, which had reflexively filed the criminal charges against Jimenez in the immediate aftermath of the confrontation, in keeping with an internal Department of Homeland Security review of the incident, has concluded that Ortiz overreacted to Jimenez’s presence and exchange with the federal agents as the task force they were a part of were assembling preparatory to the morning surprise raid.
The dismissal of the case with prejudice against Jimenez will be finalized on October 31, 2026, one year and a day following the incident in question and without any requirement that Jimenez withdraw or dismiss the $35 million lawsuit he has filed against the federal government over his shooting. The dismissal of the criminal charges with prejudice means that the criminal case against Jimenez cannot be subsequently refiled or revived.
Jimenez, 24, had left the trailer in which he resides within the Country Meadows Mobile Home Park, located at 1855 East Riverside Drive, at 6:30 a.m. on Thursday October 30 to make the drive to his Baldwin Park workplace.
Country Meadows is situated on the northwest corner of Riverside Drive and Vineyard Avenue. After exiting the residential park and while traveling on Vineyard Avenue, Jimenez observed, less than two blocks north of Riverside Drive, a Department of Immigration vehicle had stopped a Honda Accord going south on Vineyard Avenue and that a team of agents – consisting of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, an Enforcement and Removal Operations Deportation officer and two U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations officers – was engaging with the Honda’s three occupants.
The Customs Enforcement officer was speaking with the driver of the Honda on the driver’s side of the stopped vehicle when Jimenez pulled up in his Lexus RX350.
There is a discrepancy between what Jimenez maintains was said during the ensuing exchange and what the Customs Enforcement officer says was said.
According to Jimenez, he “asked” the officers to be careful, telling them they were practically next to a school bus stop, and children would be their momentarily. At that point, according to Jimenez, one of the three officers other than Ortiz – and he was not clear on whether it was the removal operations deportation officer or one of the two U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Field Operations officers, unholstered his gun and approached him, prompting him to shout, or say loudly, “Are you really going to shoot an American citizen?”
At that point, Jimenez said, he pulled forward, turning his wheels in one direction was about to back up while turning his wheels in the opposite direction to then pull forward while turning his wheels in the first direction so as to complete a three point reversal to drive away when an officer, armed with a firearm and pepper spray dispenser told him, “Get the fuck out of here.”
It was as he was backing up that he was shot, Jimenez said.
Six months ago, federal agents and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, were maintaining that Jimenez’s account omitted crucial details.
While Jimenez was “engaged in a verbal altercation with the officers at the vehicle stop,” another officer approached with his firearm and told Jimenez to leave, before holstering his firearm and arming himself with his pepper spray, the U.S. Attorney’s Office formerly maintained, and Jimenez was ordered to leave the area. Though Jimenez at that point drove his Lexus northward and away from the Honda and the officers as if he was leaving, he abruptly stopped and turned the car’s wheels to “rapidly” accelerate backwards toward the officers and the stationary Honda, according to one of the documents filed with the court by federal prosecutors in October. The officer who had been verbally engaged with the occupants of the Honda’s occupants stated he believed Jimenez’s Lexus would hit him and the Honda. While Jimenez’s Lexus was yet accelerating backward in the direction of a Border Patrol agent identified in the complaint as “Officer N.J.” and the Honda Accord, one of the officers, since identified as Ortiz, fired his gun at Jimenez, hitting him in the shoulder, according to the court document.
There is a lack of clarity as to how many shots were fired. According to one document, the incident involved the firing of a single bullet. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting on October 30, 2025, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, used the plural term “shots” in describing what had occurred.
Hurriedly drafted documents by prosecutors and accompanying affidavits provided by agents formed the basis of the charge filed against Jimenez on Friday, October 31 in Riverside Federal Court, specifying assault on a federal officer.
Jimenez fled the scene after the confrontation and his shooting, according to one of the documents filed in conjunction with the charge. “Jimenez drove away from the scene and later checked himself into a hospital,” one of the affidavits stated. “After Jimenez was medically cleared and released from the hospital, Jimenez was taken into HSI [Department of Homeland Security Investigations] custody.”
It was during his hearing on October 31 that Jimenez articulated his version of events.
The court granted Jimenez a conditional release, which included wearing an ankle monitor, upon his posting of a bond. He was represented by attorneys Cynthia Santiago and Robert Simon but was later represented by Federal Public Defender Ayah Sarsour.
If convicted of the charge against him, which included a so-called sentencing enhancement of using his vehicle as a deadly weapon in the commission of the crime, he was to be subjected to a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The U.S. Attoreney’s Office made a “diversion” offer to Jimenez based on his lack of a criminal record which was basically tantamount to a plea arrangement, in which in return for a guilty plea to the charge against him in which he would serve only one year in prison.
Sarsour declined that offer and filed motions with the court that the U.S. Attorney’s Office make a fuller showing of the purported evidence against Jimenez than it had provided through the federal criminal prosecutorial process, including records and data as to whether the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officer who fired the shot, Eusebio Ortiz, sent or received text messages following the confrontation.
Evidence provided to the court was that two of the officers at the scene made statements to the U.S. Attorney’s Office on October 31 that were recorded while Ortiz delayed a month in making his statement, do so only with his personal attorney present. When Sarsour made a specific request for the production of text messages sent by Ortiz to other federal agents and his superior in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the U.S. Attorney’s Office claimed there were no such texts, a significant anomaly in the manner in which agents of the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement normally function.
Judge Kenly Kato, who is hearing the criminal case against Jimenez, entered an order that the U.S. Attorney’s Office provide more complete and fuller evidence against Jimenez. Prior to complying with that order, the U.S. Attorney’s Office informed Sarsour that it was altering the its previous diversion offer to accept the court’s dismissal of the charges as of October 31, 2026 if Jimenez obeys the law and meets other conditions, including not getting arrested, using drugs and remaining gainfully employed.
Judge Kato agreed to facilitate the diversion arrangement by postponing, this week, the scheduled trial date to December 7, at which point the agreement to dismiss the charges will, potentially, have been effectuated. Simultaneously, Judge Kato stayed her previous order that the U.S. Attorney’s Office be more forthcoming with the evidence against Jimenez.
Greg Jackson, an attorney with the Torrance-based Simon Law Group, who has filed a $35 million claim on Jimenez’s behalf against the federal government, told the Sentinel that neither he, Jimenez nor Sarsour were had entered into an agreement to drop Jimenez’s civil suit in exchange for the dismissal of criminal charges against Jimenez.
“There is no condition whatsoever that Mr. Jimenez stop or agree not to proceed with a civil suit,” Jackson said. “We fully intend to proceed and in fact I filed the government claims about two weeks ago.”
The agreement is limited to a circumscribed set of terms, Jackson said,
“Pursuant to the agreement, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will dismiss the criminal charges with prejudice after October 31, 2026,” Jacson said. “There are only limited conditions in which the U.S. Attorney’s Office can/will ‘revive’ the criminal case prior to that date, for example if Mr. Jimenez violates any federal/state/local law, if he is arrested, if he uses illegal drugs, things like that. Given that Mr. Jimenez has zero criminal history, this will not be a problem for him. There is no ‘practical guarantee’ that the civil suit will be paused or stopped – their agreement to dismiss with prejudice bolsters our own argument that the shooting itself was unlawful and the charges against Mr. Jimenez entirely fabricated and baseless.”
Jackson vowed, “We intend to go on with Mr. Jimenez’s lawsuit, regardless of what the U.S. Attorney’s Office does. The charges filed against him were entirely baseless and fabricated, as demonstrated by their agreement to dismiss the charges with prejudice without requiring any sort of admission by Mr. Jimenez to any criminal conduct, or even any admission to any of the facts in the criminal complaint. Mr. Jimenez’s case is incredibly strong. The shooter, Agent Ortiz, violated department policy by firing his weapon at a moving vehicle, and Mr. Jimenez was in fact complying with Mr. Ortiz’s orders to drive away when Mr. Ortiz tried to murder him and shot him anyway. Between Mr. Jimenez and Mr. Ortiz, only one of them spoke to investigators without an attorney present – and it was Mr. Jimenez who fully complied and answered all of their questions. Mr. Ortiz refused to speak to investigators until a month after the shooting, and only with his attorney present. I personally look forward to taking the depositions of all of the agents involved and seeing how they answer my questions while under penalty of perjury.”
-Mark Gutglueck