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Thread: Edgar Lopez and Juan Francisco Estrada Gonzalez Get LWOP in San Diego, CA Killing Crew Case

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    Edgar Lopez and Juan Francisco Estrada Gonzalez Get LWOP in San Diego, CA Killing Crew Case

    Prosecutors announced Friday that they will seek the executions of three more men accused of committing several kidnappings and killings in San Diego County on behalf of a criminal organization called Los Palillos.

    Four defendants in the case now face the death penalty, if convicted.

    Juan Francisco Estrada-Gonzalez, 31, Edgar Frausto Lopez, 36, and Jorge Salvador Moreno, 40, have each pleaded not guilty to felony charges including murder and kidnapping for ransom.

    Two weeks ago, prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty for Jorge Rojas Lopez, 31, who has pleaded not guilty to similar charges.

    Rojas and Estrada-Gonzalez already have kidnapping convictions from a 2008 raid on a Chula Vista home where a businessman was held for eight days. They each were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    Authorities contend that Los Palillos, Spanish for “toothpicks,” is responsible for at least nine local killings between 2004 and 2007 and had been known to target some victims with ties to the notorious Arellano-Felix cartel.

    District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis announced last year that 17 people had been indicted in the case, nine of whom were in custody. Since then, two men have pleaded guilty to felony charges.

    One of them, Jesus Lopez Becerra, 32, pleaded guilty Thursday to murder, kidnapping and robbery charges and is expected to be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

    http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...alty-4-defend/

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    Prosecutors Pursue Death Penalty Against Jorge Rojas in 2007 CA Gang Slayings

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    Two members of a breakaway Mexican drug gang dissolved their victims' corpses in vats of acid in a gruesome display of Mexican cartel tactics played out on U.S. soil, a prosecutor told jurors.

    The defendants held two kidnap victims in the master bedroom of an average San Diego home as ransom payments were negotiated, said Mark Amador, a San Diego County deputy district attorney. After being dragged downstairs and strangled to death in June 2007, the bodies were placed in two 55-gallon barrels of fluids.

    Attorneys for the defendants – Jose Olivera Beritan, 38, and David Valencia, 41 – were scheduled to make opening statements Thursday.

    A cooperating witness eventually led investigators to Valencia's San Diego ranch, where they discovered bones, teeth and body remains that appeared like brownish gelatin, Amador told jurors in his opening statement Wednesday.

    The technique of dissolving bodies in liquid is common among warring Mexican cartels but extremely rare on U.S. soil. It allows for evidence to be destroyed.

    "This is not typical. This not normal. This is extraordinary – here, at least," Amador said.

    Amador said the liquids are typically made of supplies that can be purchased at stores. Jurors were shown photos of three boxes of muriatic acid found in one holding house in Chula Vista, a San Diego suburb.

    Beritan and Valencia are charged with murdering and kidnapping two people in San Diego, while Beritan is charged with a third murder. They are the first to go on trial among 17 people who were indicted in 2009 in what authorities said was a campaign by a Mexican drug gang to export its violent ways to the United States.

    Beritan is also charged with an attempted kidnapping in January 2007. The victim was allegedly abducted in a San Diego suburb by assailants wearing police uniforms and managed to escape. The victim is expected to testify.

    Prosecutors say the defendants belonged to "Los Palillos" – "The Toothpicks" in English – a cell of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel that broke away around 2002 when its leader was killed in an internal feud. The leader's younger brother, Jorge Rojas, moved to the San Diego area and allegedly directed the cell in trafficking drugs and committing nine murders and a series of kidnappings until his arrest in 2007.

    Rojas, 32, was convicted of one kidnapping in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison. He will be tried later this year on additional charges that may make him eligible for the death penalty, if convicted.

    The group's targets were sometimes suspected or confirmed drug traffickers, authorities say.

    The two whose bodies were dissolved in acid include a drug trafficker, said Amador, who did not reveal the other victim's occupation in his opening statement. The home where their bodies were dissolved was equipped with sheets of wood and fans.

    "It was a mess to do this, and it stunk," Amador said.

    The group's demise came in June 2007 when the family of one kidnap victim, Eduardo Gonzalez Tostado, called the FBI for help, Amador said. Families of previous victims refused to contact authorities.

    The prosecutor described Gonzalez as a wealthy businessman but acknowledged he is suspected by some of ties to the Arellano Felix cartel. A young woman allegedly lured him to a home in Chula Vista, where he was chained and blindfolded in a closet for eight days while his captors demanded $2 million from his pregnant wife.

    The family paid $193,000 in a package equipped with a tracking device that the FBI used to locate the victim. Gonzalez, who was rescued in a SWAT raid, is expected to testify at the trial.

    The trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1296155.html

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    Trial of Rogue Tijuana Gang Raises Question of Violence Spilling Over to San Diego

    The two defendants, Jose Olivera Beritan and David Valencia, are charged with involvement in several kidnapping and murder cases in San Diego in 2007. The two men were members of a Mexican gang, the Palillos, which once worked for the Tijuana Cartel (also known as the Arellano Felix Organization). But after the gang leader's brother was killed by the Tijuana command, the Palillos relocated to San Diego circa 2003. They used their knowledge of the Tijuana Cartel's US network to kidnap members who were living in the US. The gang also targeted drug dealers, businessmen, and police.

    While active in San Diego, the Palillos used several tactics commonly deployed by gangs across the border. They wore police uniforms when they kidnapped their victims. After collecting the ransom money, they did not always set the hostages free. In at least two cases, the captives were killed and their bodies dissolved in acid. The Palillos are so associated with this practice that the head of Baja California's Association for the Disappeared recently called for the FBI to investigate whether as many 20 people missing in Tijuana were killed and had their remains destroyed by the Palillos in the US.

    San Diego law enforcement cracked down on the organization in 2009, issuing charges against 17 members. Some of them fled to Mexico, but at least two were recaptured and extradited back to the US. Beritan and Valencia are the first of the suspected Palillo gang members to go on trial, in a case which has been cited by the FBI as an example of Mexico's drug violence spilling over the border.

    But other prominent cases of spillover violence between Tijuana and San Diego involve violence moving southwards rather than north. In the 1990s, the cartel recruited members of San Diego street gang Barrio Logan, also known as Calle 30, as mercenaries. The recruits received combat training and plenty of cash, and in return tortured, kidnapped, and killed on the cartel's behalf. Barrio Logan was reportedly behind the 1993 killing of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo in 1993. In 1997, a Mexican judge charged seven Barrio Logan members with the attempted assassination of Jesus Blancornelas, the publisher of Tijuana-based investigative magazine Zeta.

    A 2011 report by Zeta magazine suggested that such recruitment campaigns are not a thing of the past. The piece argued that a former member of the Tijuana Cartel, now working for rival organization the Sinaloa Cartel, has enlisted members of Barrio Logan to cleanse the city of rival drug trafficking cells. One of those Barrio Logan recruits reportedly included Armando Perez, whom the magazine describes as one of San Diego's "most wanted" criminals, after he killed his wife in San Diego City College in 2010.

    The Zeta report suggests that the faction of the Tijuana Cartel allied with the Sinaloans sought to recruit US gang members, as a way of gaining an edge during Tijuana's cartel wars. This is a reminder that while it would be easy to label the ongoing Palillos trial as a clear example of Mexico's violence "spilling over" the border, such violence has apparently moved in both directions.

    It's worth noting that the Palillos shifted their operations to the US under very specific circumstances: they were in the unusual position of finding it safer to operate on US soil rather than Mexican. They could avoid their enemies, and act on their grudge against the Tijuana Cartel's leadership, targeting victims who were unwilling and unable to go to the police. The group were able to prosper in San Diego in large part by exploiting their knowledge of the Tijuana Cartel's network. The Palillos are, arguably, a unique phenomenon, rather than being indicative of an overall trend of spillover violence.

    The more realistic risk is not that Mexican gangs will pack up and move to the US, as happened in the Palillos' case, but that criminal organizations like the Tijuana Cartel will deepen their collaboration with US street gangs, using them to move, protect, and distribute drug shipments. The city of San Diego has as many as 81 street gangs, according to a report by local radio station KPBS. The extent to which the Tijuana Cartel is currently working with such gangs is currently unclear. But when discussing the risk of spillover violence, the deepening of business links between Mexico's cartels and US street gangs is a far more likely prospect than that of Mexican gangs choosing to relocate north of the border. Any gang that did so would probably eventually face a fate similar to the Palillos.


    http://insightcrime.org/insight-late...r-to-san-diego

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    Document Sharing Limited In Los Palillos Case

    An order to restrict the distribution of documents in a series of cases against reputed Mexican drug traffickers was made permanent Friday by a San Diego Superior Court judge, who expressed concern for the safety of potential witnesses.

    Sensitive documents used as evidence have been found in the jail cells of reputed members of the Los Palillos gang, and threats against potential witnesses have been made, according to prosecutors and Judge John Einhorn.

    Around 15 alleged gang members and their lawyers crowded the judge's courtroom for a hearing on the issue, which pits worries over the safety of the witnesses against the need for effective representation for the defendants, four of whom face the death penalty if convicted.

    "The stakes couldn't be higher," the judge said.

    Their cases have been broken down into multiple trials. The first is under way.

    Members of Los Pallilos -- a splinter group from the Arellano Felix cartel that for years dominated the shipment of drugs through Tijuana to San Diego -- are accused of numerous murders and kidnappings. The bodies of some of the victims were dissolved in acid.

    Two defendants have pleaded guilty and plan to testify.

    "This court is convinced through [a review of the evidence] there exists a clear and present danger to the safety of a number of individuals who might be called as witnesses in this trial, and trials to come," Einhorn said.

    The judge said said there were "real, identifiable risks to witnesses."

    Einhorn and, before him, Judge Charles Rogers, had previously issued orders designed to restrict the distribution of documents to lawyers, not the defendants. Einhorn's order was temporary, and he made it permanent at Friday's hearing.

    He also told the lawyers not to destroy any documents related to the representation of their clients. He said the order was "proactive" and not "accusatory" toward any of the attorneys.

    Prosecutor Dan Owens said there have been "repeated threats to various parties, not only witnesses."

    Ricardo Garcia, who represents a client facing execution if convicted, said the amount of evidence in the case is "overwhelming," and the court orders are making his job even more difficult.

    Garcia accused prosecutors of pandering to fear and stereotypes, putting his client at a disadvantage.

    "I ask the court to let me fight for my client's life without my hands tied behind my back," Garcia said.

    Herb Weston, who represents a defendant currently on trial, said the searches of jail cells have a "chilling effect" on attorney-client communications. An inmate can no longer jot down notes on paper in his cell for fear it will be seized by authorities, he said.

    Weston and other defense lawyers contend their clients were authorized to possess the documents that were seized, some of which weren't evidence but rather counsel-defendant "work product."

    The trial of the first two Los Palillos -- which means "the toothpicks" in Spanish -- will resume on Monday. Jose Olivera Beritan and David Valencia are accused of four kidnappings in 2007, the subsequent murders of three of the victims and a separate attempted kidnapping.

    http://www.10news.com/news/30750646/detail.html
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    San Diego jury convicts 2 in cartel-linked murders

    A jury convicted two men Wednesday of first-degree murder in the killings of two men whose bodies were dissolved in acid for a Mexican drug gang.

    Prosecutors said the gruesome case is one of the worst examples of Mexico's horrific drug violence spilling over the border into the United States.

    Jose Olivera Beritan and David Valencia could face maximum terms of life in prison without parole when they are sentenced July 19. Prosecutors said they were part of a group of alleged assassins acting on behalf of a Mexican trafficker who moved to the San Diego area and directed a cell that had broken away from the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix cartel.

    The men were the first to go on trial among 17 people indicted in a case involving nine killings in San Diego. Nine of the 17 remain in custody, while the others were fugitives.

    The two strangled corpses were placed in 55-gallon barrels of acid heated by propane tanks on a ranch in San Diego County. More than two years after the killings, a witness led investigators to the ranch, where human remains were recovered.

    Olivera was also convicted of a third count of first-degree murder of man whose body was stuffed into the trunk of a stolen car and abandoned. Valencia was not in the gang at the time of that killing, prosecutors said. Jurors found the men guilty of kidnapping but not guilty of torture.

    A victim who survived was Eduardo Gonzalez Tostado. Prosecutors said he was chained and blindfolded for eight days until he was rescued in an FBI raid on a home in Chula Vista in June 2007. Authorities found three boxes of muriatic acid in the house.

    Defense attorneys for Valencia and Olivera argued during the trial that two of the prosecution's key witnesses had been given deals for their testimonies and were not credible. The defense could not be reached for comment after the verdicts were read Wednesday.

    Deputy District Attorney James Fontane applauded the jury and said the verdicts send a strong message that San Diego County will not tolerate the "brutality that we're seeing just south of the border."

    "We will not sit by and let drug gangs conduct their business on our streets," he said.

    He called it the worst case of drug violence that has been seen along the southwestern border of the United States. Despite the staggering drug violence that has sent murder rates soaring in Mexican border cities like Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana in recent years, U.S. cities directly across from them remain among the safest in the nation.

    Prosecutors said the men acted on behalf of a cell called Los Palillos, or The Toothpicks. The cell broke away from the Arellano Felix cartel around 2002 when its leader was killed in an internal feud. The Arellano Felix cartel was considered Mexico's most vicious and powerful but has been largely crippled over the past decade by arrests and the killings of its top people.

    During the three-month trial, prosecutors called 80 witnesses and presented 700 items of evidence.

    The leader's younger brother, Jorge Rojas, moved to the San Diego area and allegedly directed the cell in trafficking drugs and kidnapping and in killing perceived rivals until his arrest in 2007. Rojas, 32, was convicted of kidnapping in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison. He will be tried later this year on additional charges that may make him eligible for the death penalty, if convicted.

    Read more here: http://www.theolympian.com/2012/05/1...#storylink=cpy
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    Mexican cartel members who kidnapped and murdered drug dealers before dissolving their bodies in acid are jailed for life


    A San Diego judge sentenced two Mexican drug gang members to life in prison without parole for kidnapping and killing two victims before dissolving the corpses in acid.

    Jose Olivera Beritan, 38, got five consecutive life terms Friday, and David Valencia, 41, got two consecutive life terms for the gruesome acts, which included charges of murder and kidnapping.

    A jury convicted both men of strangling two kidnap victims after holding them for nearly three weeks at a San Diego home in 2007. Beritan was also convicted of murdering a third victim.

    The two victims whose remains were discovered dissolving in acid were drug traffickers, said Mark Amador, a San Diego County deputy district attorney, according to the AP.

    Victim identities were not released.

    According to prosecutors, the defendants held the two kidnap victims for ransom in a San Diego home as payments were unsuccessfully negotiated, Amador told the AP.

    After the victims were strangled to death, the bodies were placed in two 55-gallon barrels of fluids, allegedly filled with muriatic acid, prosecutors said.

    Authorities discovered the victims after a witness led investigators to Valencia's San Diego ranch, where they discovered bones, teeth and body remains that had been reduced to a "brownish gelatin," Amador told jurors.

    "This is not typical," Amador said. "This is not normal. This is extraordinary — here, at least."

    Prosecutors told jurors the defendants belonged to "Los Palillos" (or "The Toothpicks"), a faction of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel that broke away in 2002 when its leader was killed in an internal feud, according to reports.

    The toothpicks name originated from gang members leaving toothpicks next to their victims, the LA Times reported.

    Jorge Rojas, 32-year-old alleged gang leader, was convicted of one kidnapping in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison. He will be tried later this year on additional charges that may make him eligible for the death penalty, if convicted.

    According to the AP report, Amador also showed jurors photos of three boxes of muriatic acid found at the house where the victim's bodies were discovered, adding that the home was equipped with sheets of wood and fans, presumably to reduce the stench.

    "It was a mess to do this, and it stunk," he said.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...=feeds-newsxml
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    Drug gang case could become longest in county history

    Lawyers are gearing up for the next in a series of trials pegged to Los Palillos, a drug-trafficking crew that prosecutors say is responsible for multiple kidnappings and killings in San Diego County.

    Estimated to last nine months to a year, the trial for defendants Jorge Rojas Lopez, 33, and Juan Francisco Estrada Gonzalez, 40, may end up being one of the longest — if not the longest — in San Diego Superior Court history.

    “From jury selection to verdict, I don’t know of one that’s taken longer,” said Dan Lamborn, a chief deputy district attorney who has been with that office for 29 years. He is not one of the prosecutors on the case.

    The lawyers have acknowledged that jury selection will likely be challenging. That process was to begin in November but was delayed because the judge was unavailable.

    A status conference is set for Monday to discuss scheduling.

    Rojas and Estrada are accused of murder, kidnapping for ransom and other felony charges in connection with Los Palillos, which is Spanish for “toothpicks.” If convicted, they could face the death penalty.

    Prosecutors contend that the men were leaders in the gang, known among the other members as Bosses No. 1 and 2. Both men are serving life in prison on previous convictions.

    The upcoming trial will be the third in San Diego Superior Court since 17 people were indicted in 2009 on charges in connection with the Los Palillos gang. Another suspect, who was killed in Mexico, brings the number of suspects to 18.

    During the first trial, Jose Olivera Beritan and David Valencia were convicted in May of several felonies, including murder and kidnapping for ransom.

    Nancy Mendoza Moreno, who prosecutors said lured victims to their captors, was convicted in July of conspiracy and two counts of kidnapping for ransom.

    http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/co...7b0e72c83.html
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    Trial begins for suspected Mexican gang members

    The trial began Monday for two suspected Mexican gang members accused of kidnapping and murder.

    Jorge Lopez and Juan Estrada Gonzalez face the death penalty if convicted.

    http://www.cbs8.com/story/21576297/t...n-gang-members
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    Judge in Los Palillos drug gang trial withdraws

    The judge presiding over the projected yearlong death penalty trial of two alleged leaders of the violent Los Palillos Mexican drug gang is medically unable to proceed, San Diego court officials said Friday.

    Opening statements in the trial of Jorge Rojas Lopez and Juan Francisco Estrada Gonzalez started last Monday, but soon after, Judge John Einhorn went home ill with an undisclosed medical condition.

    On Friday, parties in the case were advised that Einhorn would have to withdraw from the trial.

    Another hearing is scheduled Monday.

    As he began his opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Mark Amador told a jury that Rojas and Estrada -- known as Bosses No. 1 and No. 2 -- used violence, kidnappings and assaults to move drugs through Tijuana to San Diego County.

    Rojas, 33, is charged with participating in nine murders. Estrada, also 33, is accused in six killings.

    The defendants are already serving sentences of life without parole after being convicted of kidnapping and other crimes. Their death penalty trial could be the longest in San Diego County history.

    http://www.10news.com/news/judge-in-...rial-withdraws
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    Death penalty trial for lifers?

    After some fits and starts, a Superior Court trial is under way for two accused leaders of a drug-trafficking crew that prosecutors say committed nine murders and several kidnappings over three years in San Diego County.

    The courtroom drama involving Jorge Rojas Lopez and Juan Francisco Estrada Gonzalez could go on for up to a year if the defendants are found guilty and the jurors are asked to decide in a second phase of the trial whether to recommend the death penalty.

    If that happens, the criminal trial — the latest in a string of court proceedings for defendants linked to the Los Palillos crew — could become the longest in county history.

    Rojas and Estrada are already serving life without parole on kidnapping convictions.

    http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/...-serving-life/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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