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- Nicholas Dean MacNeil avoided prison for his role in a 2009 shooting on I-15 that killed an 18-year-old.
- MacNeil received credit for 706 days in jail and five years probation.
- He pleaded guilty to manslaughter, admitting to encouraging the fatal shooting.
SALT LAKE CITY — A 34-year-old man who pleaded guilty for his role in the 2009 shooting death of an 18-year-old driver on I-15 in Salt Lake County will not serve prison time.
Cesar Ramirez was shot on Jan. 9, 2009, while driving his Jeep Cherokee on the I-15 southbound collector near 2100 South and later died from his injuries. Nicholas Dean MacNeil was arrested 14 years later, accused of shooting at Ramirez from a Nissan Maxima as it pulled up alongside the Jeep.
MacNeil pleaded guilty to manslaughter in December 2024, admitting to recklessly causing "the death of Cesar Ramirez by intentionally aiding or encouraging another to shoot at the vehicle that Cesar was driving," court documents say.
On Thursday, 3rd District Judge Barry Lawrence ordered that MacNeil be given credit for the 706 days he spent in Salt Lake and Summit county jails. The judge also suspended MacNeil's sentence of one to 15 years in prison and ordered that he serve five years of probation. Any new crimes or violation of probation conditions would mean the prison term would be enforced.
MacNeil was 20 years old when the shooting happened. He was a passenger in the Nissan along with Aaron J. Paul Campbell, 19 at the time. Matthew James Day, then 23, was driving, according to court documents. Ramirez and his brother drove past in the Jeep at the intersection of 900 South and West Temple, throwing gang signs and a bottle, according to court documents.
The young men in the Nissan followed the Jeep, pulling up beside them on the collector for I-15; Campbell had a .40-caliber pistol, and MacNeil had a .410 shotgun, charges say. They both fired at the Jeep in rush hour traffic before seeing "the driver hunch over like he had been hit, and the Jeep slowly veered off the freeway into the hazard lane," according to charging documents.
A .40-caliber bullet was found inside Ramirez's renal vein, determined to be the cause of death by the Utah Office of the Medical Examiner, charges show.
Day was arrested and charged in 2009 and pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Campbell and MacNeil weren't charged until January 2023. Campbell pleaded guilty and was sentenced in December to a term of two to 20 years in prison for manslaughter, a second-degree felony with a firearm enhancement.
Prosecutors say that MacNeil "has an extensive criminal history" and "is an active gang member" associated with the Norteño gang, according to the charges.
MacNeil was married before his jail time and was given a seven-hour furlough to see his newborn son in 2020, later requesting a compassionate release to care for the baby's health problems. That request was denied on grounds he had not exhausted all other administrative remedies for release, court documents show.
At the sentencing of Campbell, Ramirez' mother, Alma Olmedo, said through a Spanish interpreter that the men "took everything away that day."
"My son has a family, and his family will not be able to see him again. He did not come home," she said.
