A prison protection legal professional was charged in a federal indictment unsealed final week with conspiring to homicide a member of the Mexican Mafia who had fallen out of favor with the prison-based syndicate.
Gabriel Zendejas Chavez was first indicted in 2018, accused of utilizing the confidentiality afforded by his bar license to relay messages between Mexican Mafia members held in far-flung prisons. Witnesses have testified that he helped the group visitors medicine, accumulate extortion proceeds and unmask authorities informants.
Chavez, who taught English at excessive colleges in Pomona whereas learning to develop into a lawyer at night time, has maintained his innocence. At his trial in federal court docket in 2022, he testified that after he received a longtime Mexican Mafia member’s launch from jail in 2013, different inmates sought his illustration.
Information confirmed Chavez conferred with dozens of Mexican Mafia members on the high-security state jail at Pelican Bay, the federal “supermax” facility in Florence, Colo., and different establishments designed to isolate gang leaders. Chavez testified he solely pretended to assist imprisoned gang members after one in every of them threatened his younger daughter, telling the jury tearfully: “There’s no guide for this example.”
After the panel failed to achieve a verdict on racketeering and drug distribution prices, the decide declared a mistrial. Prosecutors vowed to retry Chavez.
Within the superseding indictment returned final week, prosecutors implicated Chavez within the murder of DMM-6, brief for “Deceased Mexican Mafia Member 6.” Particulars inside the indictment and testimony at Chavez’s trial clarify the sufferer is Frank Munoz, a Mexican Mafia member nicknamed “Little Man.”
Chavez’s legal professional, Meghan Blanco, stated she would ask a decide to dismiss the brand new indictment, which she known as “a loopy, last-minute transfer on the federal government’s half.”
Blanco stated after prosecutors did not get a responsible verdict with witnesses “whose data is clearly false,” they recruited new informants who’re “worse liars than the primary batch.” Chavez denies having any function within the conspiracy to kill Munoz and would push for a trial this summer season, she stated.
Launched from federal jail in 2013 after serving 23 years for financial institution theft, Munoz returned to his previous neighborhood on the west aspect of Wilmington to search out it claimed by Mexican Mafia members held within the state jail system, a witness testified at Chavez’s trial.
“Sleepy and Tonito had been previous members,” the witness instructed the jury, referring to Gabriel “Sleepy” Huerta and Emiliano “Tonito” Lopez, who had been each serving life phrases for homicide. “They’ve been controlling Wilmington for over a decade.”
With Munoz attempting to gather cash within the harbor space, the witness stated, Huerta and Lopez despatched him a message by means of Chavez: “Sluggish your roll.”
Huerta, a reputed member of the Mexican Mafia’s three-man governing “fee,” was charged late final yr with overseeing the Eastside Wilmas gang. The 64-year-old, who has been imprisoned since 1984, has pleaded not responsible to directing drug offers and ordering an assault on the streets of Wilmington. Lopez was stabbed to dying at Calipatria State Jail in 2016.
Munoz had modest ambitions for a Mexican Mafia member. Hobbled by knee surgical procedures that he’d undergone in jail, a witness instructed detectives in an interview reviewed by The Instances, Munoz was content material to promote small quantities of methamphetamine and accumulate a number of hundred {dollars} right here and there from gang members engaged on his behalf.
In an indictment unsealed after his dying, federal prosecutors accused Munoz of amassing a “tax” from pushers who offered medicine in motels, bars and parking heaps in Wilmington. In a single name cited by prosecutors, Munoz mentioned the packaging of six ounces of meth, which he stated he would decide up himself.
After a jailed member of the Northside Longo gang instructed the authorities that Munoz was attempting to stake a declare in Lengthy Seashore, Munoz was caught on a recorded line ordering the person’s beating and a $500 tremendous.
“All I needed was somebody that can smack this motherf— upside the top a few instances simply to let him know to maintain his f— mouth shut,” Munoz instructed an inmate within the Los Angeles County jail, in line with court docket data.
“Take into account it accomplished,” the inmate stated. Sheriff’s deputies moved the goal into protecting custody earlier than he was harmed.
By then, Munoz discovered himself in the midst of a bitter feud enjoying out on jail yards and the streets of Los Angeles between Mexican Mafia members who served time within the federal and state jail programs.
After getting out of federal jail in 2014, Dominick “Solo” Gonzales started amassing cash from gangs and sellers within the San Fernando Valley, angering Mexican Mafia members within the California system whose grip over the realm had gone unchallenged for years, witnesses testified at a federal racketeering trial.
Gonzales was making up for misplaced time. He’d served 15 years, and felt the Mexican Mafia members within the California system had disrespected his stepfather, Frank “Sapo” Fernandez, by chopping him out of the San Fernando Valley rackets after he was despatched to federal jail for all times in 2000.
Gonzales additionally clashed with Pete “Malo” Cordero, the nephew of a Mexican Mafia member. After Cordero was gunned down in late 2015, Gonzales was blamed. Mexican Mafia members held a 30-man convention name, dialing in from numerous state prisons on contraband cellphones, a witness testified. The consensus: Gonzales needed to go.
The duty fell to Cordero’s greatest pal, Jose “Cartune” Loza, in line with proof offered at Loza’s trial in 2019. After organising a gathering with Gonzales at El Jalisco Cafe in Bassett within the San Gabriel Valley, Loza requested Munoz to accompany him, a witness testified. Munoz refused, citing his unhealthy knees.
Loza shot Gonzales to dying on the restaurant, and is now serving a sentence of life plus 30 years in federal jail.
After Gonzales’ dying, Munoz was positioned on “the lista” — the Mexican Mafia’s hit listing, in line with witnesses who testified towards Loza and Chavez.
Chavez represented Raul “Cool Cat” Rocha, who in 2016 was petitioning to overturn a 25-years-to-life sentence for his third strike — stealing a pair of pants in 1995. Whereas being held in Los Angeles County jail, Rocha testified that one other inmate, Robert “Dopey” Hinojos, requested that he carry a be aware inquiring about Gonzales and Munoz to the authorized visiting room. Rocha testified that Chavez confirmed each males had been marked for dying earlier than swallowing the be aware.
Chavez denied passing phrase of any hit listing, telling the jury: “I didn’t, and wouldn’t, ever hurt somebody.”
Round 4 p.m. on Oct. 1, 2016, Munoz was standing exterior his fiancee’s residence in Hawaiian Gardens when a gunman shot him 13 instances, in line with a coroner’s report. The indictment says solely that “UICC 58” — unindicted co-conspirator 58 — killed Munoz with the assistance of two different folks.
Hinojos, a reputed Mexican Mafia member from Paramount’s Brown Nation gang, is now serving two life sentences after being convicted of killing a person in Paramount and conspiring to homicide an inmate at Centinela State Jail.
Throughout Hinojos’ trial for the Paramount homicide, prosecutors performed a tape that was secretly recorded inside a cell block that Hinojos shared with one other Mexican Mafia member, Daniel “Danny Boy” Pina.
Explaining that prosecutors needed to have “inside information about one thing” to cost him, Pina whispered to Hinojos: “The nice factor is lastly you might be gonna be capable to discover out what precisely them bastards have.”
“Hopefully there is no such thing as a, no, no — uh, the factor with Little Man,” Hinojos stated, a reference to Munoz’s nickname.
Pina shushed him. “Don’t say something about that to anyone,” he stated.
