St. Paul man sentenced to probation for violent threat charge

A St. Paul man will spend the next few years on probation after pleading guilty to one of the three charges filed against him last year.

Wednesday, 32-year-old Aung Toe Lay was sentenced to serve three years of supervised probation with Ramsey County Probation for one count of Threats of Violence. Judge Andrew Gordon stayed an 18-month prison sentence and gave Lay 110 days of credit for time already served behind bars.

Lay isn’t allowed to register to vote until discharged from probation, not use alcohol or other controlled substances, attend anger management and not possess any kind of firearm, ammunition or explosives as part of his conditions.

As previously reported, police responded to a call of domestic assault at County Road B and Rice Street shortly before 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 31. When officers arrived, they learned a woman drove with her boyfriend to her home on Ivy Avenue in St. Paul to find her ex, identified as Lay, who was in another vehicle she owned.

She drove into a back alley once Lay saw her, according to a criminal complaint, and Lay blocked her into the alley with the vehicle he was in.

At one point, Lay threw a tire iron at her, but the woman managed to drive away after reversing out of the alley. Lay then followed her and slammed into the back of her car when she braked, according to the complaint. She drove north on Rice Street and tried to make a U-turn but slid into a driveway. She and her boyfriend ran from the scene, with Lay following them with a tire iron.

A complaint states Lay went back to the vehicle he was driving and took off on the wrong side of the road toward the passenger side of the woman’s car. She was able to move out of the way before Lay hit the car. He then backed up and pointed the car at her, causing her to run. Lay then backed over a traffic sign and headed south on Rice Street.

A witness leaving Cub Foods saw Lay throwing the tire iron at the woman and hitting her car with his vehicle multiple times, according to the complaint.

Lay was initially charged with two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of threats of violence in October 2021. He pleaded not guilty to all counts.

A plea hearing was held in January this year, and a petition to enter a guilty plea was made in late February. Court records show an arrest warrant was issued for Lay in June after he failed to appear at a hearing. He was eventually arrested in November.