In court, Jordan Isaac Carmi admitted three lesser offenses after initially facing first-degree murder in Tony Young’s New Year’s Day death.
DES MOINES, Iowa — A case that began with a first-degree murder charge ended six months later with three guilty pleas, a 20-year prison sentence and a defendant’s acknowledgment that he introduced a loaded gun into an argument with the friend he killed.
Jordan Isaac Carmi, 31, pleaded guilty to reckless use of a firearm causing serious injury, involuntary manslaughter and possession of a firearm as a felon in the Jan. 1 death of Tony Alexander Young, 30. District Judge Samantha Gronewald sentenced Carmi on July 10 and ordered him to pay $150,000 in restitution to Young’s estate, according to the Polk County Attorney’s Office. The resolution avoided a trial on the murder accusation filed after Carmi’s arrest.
The difference between the original charge and the final convictions is the central legal development in the case. First-degree murder requires proof associated with an intentional and highly culpable killing. Felony involuntary manslaughter, by contrast, covers an unintentional death caused during the commission of another qualifying public offense. By accepting Carmi’s pleas, prosecutors secured convictions tied to the fatal consequences of his conduct without asking a jury to decide whether the evidence established first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.
Neither the county attorney’s sentencing announcement nor the other public reports reviewed for this article disclosed the full plea agreement or the prosecution’s internal assessment of the murder charge. They do not identify which evidence caused prosecutors to accept the lesser offenses, whether witnesses gave conflicting accounts or whether forensic findings affected the decision. Because the case ended in pleas, many details that could have emerged during testimony were never presented in an open trial.
The public narrative instead comes largely from Carmi’s statement at sentencing. He said he and Young had celebrated New Year’s Eve at downtown Des Moines bars before returning to his apartment in the 300 block of Court Avenue with other people. An argument began near the apartment. Carmi said some people refused to leave, so he retrieved a firearm. The people eventually departed, but Carmi and Young continued discussing whether they should pursue them.
Carmi said he pointed the gun at Young because he thought the threat would bring that discussion to an end. “I thought I could end the conversation by pointing the gun at him,” he told the court, according to prosecutors. He admitted he was drunk and high while handling the loaded weapon and called that decision “incredibly stupid.” The gun discharged and struck Young. Carmi did not dispute that he was holding it or that his actions caused the fatal injury.
That account contains two different questions of intent. Carmi said he intentionally aimed the gun at his friend but did not intentionally fire it. His guilty pleas reflected criminal liability for the resulting death, the reckless handling or discharge of the firearm and the fact that he was legally barred from possessing it. The pleas did not require the court to make a finding that Carmi formed an intent to kill Young.
“I accidentally shot my friend,” Carmi told Gronewald during the hearing. He also addressed Young’s lack of responsibility for the confrontation’s deadly end. “I need everyone to understand in no uncertain terms that Tony did not deserve what happened to him,” he said, according to the prosecutor’s office. The statements were expressions of remorse, not a defense to the charges he had already admitted.
Carmi’s status as a felon added a separate layer to the case. Prosecutors said he was convicted in Utah in 2016 of possessing drugs with intent to distribute. Iowa law generally makes it a felony for a person previously convicted of a felony to knowingly possess, receive, transport or exercise control over a firearm. The public sentencing account did not state where Carmi obtained the gun or whether it was registered to another person.
The reckless-use conviction addressed conduct involving the weapon itself. Iowa law distinguishes between intentional and unintentional discharges and assigns penalties based partly on whether the conduct causes property damage, bodily injury or serious injury. The public summaries identify Carmi’s conviction as reckless use of a firearm causing serious injury. They do not reproduce the charging document or judgment, so the exact statutory subsection should be confirmed from the filed record before being described more narrowly.
The involuntary-manslaughter conviction accounted for Young’s death. Iowa law provides that a person commits a class D felony when the person unintentionally causes another person’s death through the commission of a public offense other than a forcible felony or escape. The plea connected the unintended death to Carmi’s unlawful and reckless conduct, while leaving behind the prosecution’s original claim that the shooting amounted to first-degree murder.
Young was taken to UnityPoint Des Moines Methodist Medical Center, where he died on Jan. 1. He had turned 30 on Dec. 26. Police detained Carmi at the Court Avenue apartment building and announced the murder charge soon afterward. Authorities called Young’s death the city’s first homicide of 2026. The available reports do not describe a prolonged search for a suspect or disagreement about Carmi’s identity as the person who handled the weapon. The legal resolution did not resolve every factual question. Public reports do not say precisely how the gun discharged, whether Carmi’s finger was on the trigger, whether the weapon had a mechanical defect or how close he and Young were when the shot was fired. They also do not provide laboratory findings, a complete timeline of emergency calls or a full account from the other people involved in the earlier argument.
Those omissions matter because the case’s movement from murder to manslaughter would normally draw attention to state of mind, weapon handling and witness credibility. But a plea agreement often narrows the facts that must be established in open court. Carmi admitted enough conduct to support the final offenses, and prosecutors accepted that resolution. Unless additional records are released, the sentencing narrative will remain more complete than the public explanation of how the parties reached it.
Young’s family used the sentencing hearing to focus on consequences that the charge reduction did not change. His mother, Yvette Young, called him a loving father with a “vibrant, effervescent personality.” “He always brought music to my house, and now there is none,” she told the court. Young’s girlfriend said their child was trying to understand why his father would not return and had been given “a life sentence of grief.”
Young’s father told Carmi that he would pray for him while asking that the prison term become a period of meaningful reflection. “I want you to spend enough time to truly, truly reflect and be the person you say you want to be,” he said, according to prosecutors. The statement recognized Carmi’s professed remorse while insisting that the consequences required more than a brief acknowledgment in court. An obituary said Young was born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, and graduated from Lincoln High School after coming to Iowa. He enjoyed rap music, dancing, football and time with friends. He also spent time playing video games and cooking with his son, Jakari. He was survived by his son, his parents, six siblings and many other relatives and friends.
The court’s $150,000 restitution order was imposed in addition to imprisonment. Iowa law requires restitution in certain felony cases in which a defendant’s acts cause a death. The public announcement does not state whether the court ordered additional amounts for itemized losses or how Carmi will pay the judgment while incarcerated. Restitution is enforceable as a legal obligation, but payment may depend on a defendant’s resources and future earnings.
Public summaries also do not provide a detailed breakdown of the 20-year sentence among the three counts. They do not state whether all portions run at the same time or one after another, nor do they specify Carmi’s earliest possible release date. Those details are generally controlled by the written judgment and correctional rules rather than the headline sentence alone.
The guilty pleas brought certainty to a prosecution that otherwise could have required jurors to choose between sharply different legal interpretations of the shooting. Carmi avoided a murder trial but accepted convictions that recognize both the death he caused and his unlawful possession and use of the firearm. Young’s relatives avoided the uncertainty of a trial but were left with a sentence attached to a loss they said would last for the rest of their lives.
Carmi remains subject to the 20-year prison term and restitution judgment. No appeal or further contested hearing was identified in the sources reviewed for this report. The murder charge will not proceed to trial because the case has been resolved through the guilty pleas, leaving the sentencing record as the final public account of the prosecution unless additional court documents are released.
Author note: Last updated August 5, 2026.