'Mayfair tire slasher' waives hearing in new case

David Toledo, dubbed the "Mayfair tire slasher," waived his preliminary hearing Thursday on allegations that he tried to puncture the tire of a SEPTA employee's car in Oxford Circle last year.

Toledo, 47, dressed in a maroon sweatshirt and gray sweatpants, who is in custody, was held for trial on misdemeanor charges of possession of an instrument of crime and attempted criminal mischief by Municipal Judge Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde.

Toledo is accused of putting a sticky mousetrap with nails attached to it under the tire of a private car belonging to a SEPTA employee, parked on Creston Street near Oakland, at about 5:30 a.m. Nov. 19.

The employee was sitting in his car at the time. He and another SEPTA employee, who was sitting in a separate car on that block, then reported the incident to police, Assistant District Attorneys Tracie Gaydos and Lauren McHale said after the waiver.

Toledo was living at the time on that block. He had moved to Oxford Circle while awaiting trial on his earlier case, McHale said.

Defense attorney William J. Brennan said Toledo, by waiving his preliminary hearing, was taking "the first step in moving the case forward with as little inconvenience to the court and the public as possible."

In April 2012, Toledo, a high-school dropout and former butcher, then living on Aldine Street near Frankford Avenue in Holmesburg, near Mayfair, became infamous after he was arrested for slashing vehicle tires on his and another block. Before his arrest, he often spoke to the media, decrying the tire slashings in his neighborhood.

In February 2014, a Common Pleas jury convicted Toledo of slashing the tires of 12 of his neighbors, but acquitted him of slashing tires of 37 other neighbors.

In May, Common Pleas Judge Edward Wright sentenced Toledo to two years' probation. Toledo was on probation at the time of the alleged November incident.