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Thread: Sandoval, Grimaldi, Contreres and Palacios Sentenced in 2001 CA Murder of Jacqueline Piazza

  1. #1
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Sandoval, Grimaldi, Contreres and Palacios Sentenced in 2001 CA Murder of Jacqueline Piazza

    Jury begins hearing case against 4 reputed gang members charged in 13-year-old Whittier girl’s killing

    By City News Service
    The Whittier Daily News

    LOS ANGELES. A prosecutor told jurors today that a 13-year-old Whittier girl was taken to a remote area of Elysian Park where she was raped and shot to death more than 16 years ago, while an attorney for one of the four reputed gang members charged with the teen’s killing countered that his client has been wrongly accused.

    A jury in downtown Los Angeles is hearing the case against Santos Grimaldi, 35; Melvin Sandoval, 38, and Rogelio Contreras, 40, who are charged with the June 2001 killing of Jacqueline Piazza.

    A separate jury is hearing the case against co-defendant Jorge Palacios, 39, who is being tried in the same courtroom.

    In his opening statement to jurors hearing the case against Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras, Deputy District Attorney Dayan Mathai said the evidence would show that Palacios told the other gang members they had to get rid of the teenage runaway after he and his girlfriend beat the girl, whom he called an enemy.

    The prosecutor told jurors that Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras took the crying girl — who was eventually forced to ride in the trunk of the car — to a wilderness area in Elysian Park, where her body was found the next morning by a hiker walking with his dog.

    “This crime against Jacqueline was a violent murder where she was shot twice in the head and this is how she was left,” Mathai said, showing jurors a photo of the victim wearing only a pair of socks and shoes.

    The prosecutor told jurors that the teenager had been raped, with DNA testing showing that a DNA sample consistent with Sandoval’s DNA was found on a vaginal swab taken from the victim and that a DNA sample consistent with Grimaldi’s DNA was collected from her breast.

    Sandoval’s attorney, Victor Salerno, told the panel that his client had “nothing to do with the tragic murder and kidnapping” of the teen.

    The defense lawyer called into question the upcoming testimony of the prosecution’s star witness about the girl’s killing and said jurors would hear about the police informant’s contradictory statements to law enforcement.

    “He is innocent of the charges which are before you, the murder and the kidnapping,” Salerno said of Sandoval, telling jurors that his client had engaged in consensual sex with the girl within a one-to two-day period before she was killed.

    In his opening statement Monday, Palacios’ attorney, Lawrence Forbes, told jurors that what had happened to the girl was a tragedy.

    “But the evidence will show that Jorge Palacios had nothing to do with her death,” he said, telling the panel that it “would compound the tragedy to convict him.”

    Attorneys for Grimaldi and Contreras reserved their opening statements until the start of the defense’s case.

    The murder charge against the four men includes the special circumstance allegations of murder during a kidnapping, murder during a rape or attempted rape and murder during the commission or attempted commission of a lewd act on a child.

    The four are also charged with a count each of kidnapping to commit another crime.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Grimaldi and Sandoval. Contreras and Palacios could face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted as charged.

    Jurors are set to begin hearing testimony Wednesday.

    http://www.whittierdailynews.com/201...girls-killing/
    Last edited by Helen; 11-01-2017 at 08:11 AM. Reason: Fixed heading, capitalization, deleted unnecessary word & period after victims name, added news org.

  2. #2
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Jury deadlocks in trial of 3 men charged with 2001 killing, rape of 13-year-old Whittier girl

    By CITY NEWS SERVICE
    The Whittier Daily News

    Jurors deadlocked Thursday in the trial of three of the four men charged in the killing of a 13-year-old Whittier girl who was taken to a remote area of Elysian Park, where she was raped and shot to death nearly 17 years ago.

    Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler declared a mistrial after jurors reported that they could not reach a unanimous verdict on the murder charge against Santos Grimaldi, 35, Melvin Sandoval, 38, and Rogelio Contreras, 40, stemming from Jacqueline Piazza’s June 2001 killing.

    The downtown Los Angeles jury was handed the case March 7 and deliberated over portions of 12 days. The panel split 8-4 in favor of acquitting Grimaldi and Contreras and 9-3 in favor of acquitting Sandoval, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.

    The jury acquitted Contreras of one count of kidnapping to commit another crime, but did not reach a verdict on the same charge against Grimaldi and Sandoval.

    Prosecutors plan to retry the case.

    The three men are due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom May 4 for a pretrial hearing.

    Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Grimaldi and Sandoval. Contreras could face life in prison without parole if he is convicted as charged.

    A separate jury convicted a fourth defendant, Jorge Palacios, on March 1 of first-degree murder and kidnapping to commit another crime. That jury also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during a kidnapping, murder during a rape or attempted rape and murder during the commission or attempted commission of a lewd act on a child, along with gang and gun allegations.

    Palacios is facing life in prison without the possibility of parole, with sentencing set for April 11.

    In the trial of Grimaldi, Contreras and Sandoval, Deputy District Attorney Dayan Mathai said the evidence showed that Palacios told the men that they had to get rid of the teenage runaway after he and his girlfriend beat the girl, whom he called an enemy.

    The prosecutor told jurors that Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras took the crying girl — who was eventually forced to ride in the trunk of the car — to a wilderness area in Elysian Park, where her body was found the next morning by a hiker walking with his dog.

    “This crime against Jacqueline was a violent murder where she was shot twice in the head and this is how she was left,” Mathai said, showing jurors a photo of the victim wearing only a pair of socks and shoes.

    The prosecutor said the teenager had been raped, with DNA testing showing that a sample consistent with Sandoval’s DNA was found on a vaginal swab taken from the victim and that a DNA sample consistent with Grimaldi’s DNA was collected from her breast.

    Sandoval’s attorney, Victor Salerno, told jurors that his client had sex with the teen, but didn’t have any motive to murder her.

    “He’s not here to be judged for having sex with that young girl,” the defense attorney said, telling jurors that his client had no reason to sexually assault the girl in the park and urging the panel to acquit Sandoval.

    Contreras’ attorney, Richard LaPan, said his client was “telling you the truth” and “shouldn’t be a defendant.”

    “Your duty is to find the truth,” he said. “Please don’t guess. Guessing convicts innocent people.”

    Palacios, Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras were indicted in May 2012 in connection with the girl’s killing.

    https://www.whittierdailynews.com/20...whittier-girl/
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  3. #3
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Man Gets Prison For Elysian Park Rape And Murder Of Girl, 13

    Before he was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a young girl, Jorge Palacios proclaimed his innocence to her parents

    Patch.com

    LOS ANGELES, CA — A man convicted in the killing of a 13-year-old Whittier girl, who was taken to a remote area of Elysian Park where she was raped and shot 18 years ago, was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Just before being sentenced, Jorge Palacios told Jacqueline Piazza's parents, "I feel really terrible about what happened. Trust me, I wasn't part of what happened ... I know justice will be served."

    A separate jury deadlocked in March 2018 on a murder charge against Palacios' co-defendants, Santos Grimaldi, 36, Melvin Sandoval, 39, and Rogelio Contreras, 41, and acquitted Contreras of kidnapping to commit another crime, but did not reach a verdict on the same charge against Grimaldi and Sandoval.

    Prosecutors plan to retry the murder case against the three.

    Palacios, now 41, was convicted in March 2018 of first-degree murder and kidnapping to commit another crime involving the teen's June 2001 killing.

    Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during a kidnapping, murder during a rape or attempted rape and murder during the commission or attempted commission of a lewd act on a child, along with gang and gun allegations.

    Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler called the killing "completely unnecessary."

    "She didn't do anything," he said of the girl, adding that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    In statements read in court by Deputy District Attorney Rachel Greene, one of the girl's cousins said she had been "destroyed" by her relative's death and another cousin said the passage of time has not lessened the pain of her killing.

    In his opening statement to jurors hearing the case against Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras, Deputy District Attorney Dayan Mathai said Palacios told the other gang members that they had to get rid of the teenage runaway after he and his girlfriend beat the girl whom he called an enemy.

    The prosecutor told jurors that Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras took the crying girl -- who was eventually forced to ride in the trunk of the car -- to a wilderness area in Elysian Park, where her body was found the next morning by a hiker walking with his dog.

    "This crime against Jacqueline was a violent murder where she was shot twice in the head and this is how she was left," Mathai said, showing jurors a photo of the victim wearing only a pair of socks and shoes.

    The prosecutor said the teenager had been raped, with DNA testing showing that a DNA sample consistent with Sandoval's DNA was found on a vaginal swab taken from the victim and that a DNA sample consistent with Grimaldi's DNA was collected from her breast.

    Palacios' attorney, Lawrence Forbes, told jurors in his client's trial that what had happened to the girl was a tragedy, "but the evidence will show that Jorge Palacios had nothing to do with her death" and it "would compound the tragedy to convict him."

    Palacios, Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras were indicted in May 2012 in connection with the girl's killing.

    https://patch.com/california/echopar...murder-girl-13
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  4. #4
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    Two decades after a girl’s murder, three MS-13 members found guilty

    BY MATTHEW ORMSETHSTAFF WRITER

    Three members of the MS-13 gang were found guilty Thursday of murdering a girl in 2001 on a hillside in Elysian Park.

    The jury’s verdict laid to rest questions of who was responsible for a crime that went unsolved for a decade and then dragged through the courts for another.

    Melvin Sandoval, 42, and Santos Grimaldi, 39, were convicted of first-degree murder in the death of the 13-year-old girl, Jacqueline Piazza. Because the jury found that Sandoval and Grimaldi murdered Jacqueline in the commission of a rape and while committing a lewd act on a child, the men must be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Rogelio Contreras, 44, was convicted of second-degree murder. The jury found that all three men killed Jacqueline for the benefit of their gang, MS-13.

    Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler scheduled their sentencing for May 13.

    Another MS-13 member, Jorge Palacios, was convicted in 2018 of murdering and kidnapping Jacqueline. Now 43, he is serving life without the possibility of parole.

    Jacqueline had run away from her family’s home in Whittier and ended up on the streets of Los Angeles’ Westlake district when, on the afternoon of June 27, 2001, she met Palacios a few blocks west of MacArthur Park. Palacios was selling drugs there, according to an appellate decision that summarized the evidence in his trial, and for a reason authorities could never discern, believed the teenager was a “chavala,” or enemy of his gang.

    Palacios and his girlfriend threw Jacqueline to the ground and beat her, then told Sandoval and Grimaldi to take the girl somewhere, rape her and “get rid of her,” a witness testified at trial.

    With Jacqueline stashed in the trunk, Contreras drove Sandoval, Grimaldi and a female MS-13 member to Elysian Park, where Grimaldi and Sandoval raped the girl, according to testimony. She was shot twice in the head, her body left on a hillside in the dark.

    The case went unsolved for a decade, until the female MS-13 member told detectives what she had witnessed. DNA evidence from Jacqueline’s body linked Grimaldi and Sandoval to her rape, and another witness told authorities that Sandoval, Grimaldi and Contreras had told him details of the crime years later. Contreras, the witness testified, had once said he could “still see her ghost in my car.”

    Palacios, Sandoval, Grimaldi and Contreras were charged with the girl’s murder in 2012. It emerged during the investigation that beginning around 2004, Palacios had worked as an informant for the FBI and had been used to infiltrate MS-13 cells in Nebraska, Maryland, Virginia, Florida and Indiana, according to an agent’s testimony in a Nebraska prosecution. He helped agents collect evidence in drug and gun cases and a murder-for-hire plot.

    For his work, the bureau paid Palacios more than $300,000, the agent said. Asked by a defense attorney if Palacios had made more money selling drugs — his source of income prior to becoming an informant — “or more money working for the FBI,” the agent responded: “I don’t know.”

    The bureau continued using Palacios as an informant after being told in early 2009 that he was suspected of having killed a 13-year-old girl, the agent testified.

    Palacios was tried separately from his co-defendants on the charge of kidnapping and murdering Jacqueline. He was convicted, but a jury deadlocked in the case against Sandoval, Grimaldi and Contreras in 2018.

    For the retrial, Deputy Dist. Atty. Dayan Mathai, who had worked with the detectives investigating the murder since 2010, said he decided to hone in on evidence from the crime scene. In the first trial, witness testimony had formed the heart of the prosecution’s case, but the defendants’ attorneys had attacked their credibility and raised doubts about their motives in coming forward.

    Mathai said he wanted to show to the jury “what the crime scene told us what happened”: physical evidence that Jacqueline had been raped on the hillside, blood spatter that showed where her body was positioned, and the DNA of two defendants. Many witnesses from the first trial testified again in the second, but prosecutors stressed how their testimony aligned with evidence from the scene, Mathai said.

    The second trial was halted in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed in May 2021, with jurors hearing testimony and closing arguments until last week, when they began deliberating.

    “We feel the jury spoke, and it was a full and complete test of the evidence,” Mathai said. “In excruciating detail, every issue was litigated, every witness was called, tested, cross-examined.

    “Our theme was what happened to Jacqueline demanded an answer,” he said. “A 13-year-old is sexually assaulted — raped — and left naked with two bullets in the back of her head. It took this long to get it, but now we have an answer. Now we have the answer.”

    https://www.latimes.com/california/s...ilty?_amp=true
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    Man Sentenced to 40 Years to Life in 13-Year-Old Girl’s Killing

    MyNewsLA.com

    One of four men convicted in the killing of a 13-year-old Whittier girl more than two decades ago was sentenced Wednesday to 40 years to life in state prison.

    Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler — who denied the defense’s motion for a new trial — said he didn’t believe Rogelio Contreras’ claims that he is innocent in the June 2001 killing of Jacqueline Piazza, and called the case “the result of incredible police work.”

    Contreras, 44, was convicted March 3 of second-degree murder, while co-defendants Santos Grimaldi, 39, and Melvin Sandoval, now 43, were convicted of first-degree murder.

    Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a rape and a lewd act on a child against Grimaldi and Sandoval, who are awaiting sentencing and are facing life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    A jury deadlocked in March 2018 on the murder charge against the three men, but a separate jury convicted a fourth man, Jorge Palacios, now 44, in March 2018 of first-degree murder and kidnapping to commit another crime involving Piazza’s killing.

    Jurors in Palacios’ case also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during a kidnapping, murder during a rape or attempted rape and murder during the commission or attempted commission of a lewd act on a child, along with gang and gun allegations.

    Just before being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in June 2019, Palacios told the teen’s parents, “I feel really terrible about what happened. Trust me, I wasn’t part of what happened … I know justice will be served.”

    A state appeals court panel subsequently upheld Palacios’ conviction, with the panel noting that the victim was quietly sobbing in the back seat when the vehicle stopped under a freeway underpass and she was ordered into the car’s trunk so roadway cameras would not be able to document her as a passenger.

    The four defendants were indicted in May 2012 for the girl’s killing.

    In his opening statement to jurors in the first trial of Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras, Deputy District Attorney Dayan Mathai said Palacios told the other gang members that they had to get rid of the teenage runaway after he and his girlfriend beat the girl, whom he called an enemy.

    The prosecutor told jurors that Grimaldi, Sandoval and Contreras took the crying girl — who was eventually forced to ride in the trunk — to a wilderness area in Elysian Park, where her body was found the next morning by a hiker walking his dog.

    “This crime against Jacqueline was a violent murder where she was shot twice in the head and this is how she was left,” Mathai said, showing jurors a photo of the victim wearing only a pair of socks and shoes.

    The prosecutor said the teenager had been raped, with DNA testing showing that a DNA sample consistent with Sandoval was found on a vaginal swab taken from the victim and that a DNA sample consistent with Grimaldi was collected from her breast.

    During Contreras’ sentencing hearing, the deputy district attorney told the judge that “it was this defendant (Contreras) who said, `I know a place to take her,” and noted that it was a remote area and “so relevant” to the fact that she wasn’t going to be coming back.

    Monique Piazza told the judge that she was “10 years old when I found out that my best friend — the most important person in my life at the time — would never come home again.

    “I had already seen my sister for the last time. I would never get the chance to say goodbye,” she said.

    She told the judge that she had thought for 21 years of what she might say “to the people responsible for ending my sister’s life — the people who got to see in her in her last moments when I would have done anything to see her one last time, the people that did these horrific things to her, the ones who made her last moments a nightmare.”

    She said she eventually came to the conclusion that “the people who did this to my sister must have had lives that I could not imagine — lives that were also marked by violence and terror.”

    But the victim’s sister insisted that there was “still no excuse for harming another human being or taking a life, especially that of an innocent child.”

    “Nothing will change what has already happened, and nothing will bring her back,” she added. “I only hope that those involved can forgive themselves for the wrongs they have done, and the wrongs others have done to them.”

    https://mynewsla.com/uncategorized/2...rls-killing-2/

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    August 12, 2022

    LA Men Sentenced In Kidnapping, Rape, Murder Of 13-Year-Old

    Two Los Angeles men were sentenced to life in prison for 2001 killing of Jacqueline Piazza.

    City News Service

    LOS ANGELES, CA — Two men convicted in the killing of a 13-year-old Whittier girl more than two decades ago were sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler denied the defense's request for a new trial for Santos Grimaldi, 39, and Melvin Sandoval, 43, who were tried along with co-defendant Rogelio Contreras, 44, for the June 2001 killing of Jacqueline Piazza.

    Grimaldi and Sandoval were convicted March 22 of first-degree murder, with jurors finding true the special-circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a rape and a lewd act on a child.

    Jurors found Contreras guilty of second-degree murder, and he was sentenced in May to 40 years to life in state prison.

    A jury deadlocked in March 2018 on the murder charge against the three men, but a separate jury convicted a fourth man, Jorge Palacios, now 44, in March 2018 of first-degree murder and kidnapping to commit another crime involving Piazza's killing.

    Jurors in Palacios' case also found true the special-circumstance allegations of murder during a kidnapping, murder during a rape or attempted rape and murder during the commission or attempted commission of a lewd act on a child, along with gang and gun allegations.

    Palacios was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in June 2019, moments after telling the teen's parents, "I feel really terrible about what happened. Trust me, I wasn't part of what happened ... I know justice will be served."

    A state appeals court panel subsequently upheld Palacios' conviction, with the panel noting that the victim was quietly sobbing in the back seat when the vehicle stopped under a freeway underpass and she was ordered into the car's trunk so roadway cameras would not be able to document her as a passenger.

    The four defendants were indicted in May 2012 for the girl's killing.

    The judge said it had been a "long and winding road to get here" and said the police "never gave up for a minute" and "allowed it to come to a just end."

    The victim's mother, Elizabeth, called her daughter's loss "so sudden and shocking," and said it was surreal to have to tell family members that she had been murdered.

    "We will always miss her," she said.

    Monique Piazza said she was 10 when she realized her older sister was never going to come home again.

    "I would never get the chance to say goodbye," she said.

    In a brief statement before he was sentenced, Grimaldi said his heart goes out to the victim's family for their loss, but said he was the victim of a "wrongful conviction" obtained by the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

    He said it had been a "roller coaster" for him and his family since he was charged with the crime and called it the "worst experience" he has been through so far.

    https://www.google.com/amp/s/patch.c...of-13-year-old

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