OAKLAND — A federal jury has convicted four men who prosecutors say control a vast network of street and prison gangs that run drugs and commit violence throughout California.
David Cervantes, 76, James Perez, 70, Guillermo Solorio, 45, and George Franco, 59, were each found guilty of racketeering and conspiracy charges, all related to their leadership roles in the Nuestra Familia prison gang. The most serious charges involved conspiracies to police the gang by killing members and associates who ran afoul of the gang’s “generals.”
The charges carry life sentences in federal prison. All four men are already serving life in the California state prison system, and Cervantes and Perez both are confined to wheelchairs, which they sat in during the entire trial. The four have been housed at a Vacaville prison while the trial was going on in Oakland.
“Prisons are supposed to protect the community from further crime and offer people the chance for rehabilitation, but prison gangs frustrate both goals,” Northern California U.S. Attorney Martha Boersch said in a written statement. She later added, “successful prosecutions like this send an unmistakable message that this will not be tolerated simply because it’s happening behind prison walls.”
Defense attorneys disputed the charges, taking aim at the multiple former Nuestra Familia members who agreed to take the stand for prosecutors. Cervantes’ lawyers also essentially argued that Cervantes had moved on with his life and was no longer interested in being a gang leader, but had participated in a handful of phone calls where he asserted he was still a Nuestra Familia member so that he could maintain his respectability in a general population prison yard.
Several of the intended murder targets were stabbed in prison, but all of the victims survived. At least one of them went on to become a witness for the government, recounting his life as a street gang member who sought to join the Nuestra Familia when he was sent to prison for a shooting in Salinas.
The Nuestra Familia controls the Norteño street gang, with a paramilitary structure where everyone plays a different role, according to witness testimony. It is divided among “regiments” spread throughout Northern California. Profits — through drug sales, robberies and other means — are filtered to the Nuestra Familia through wire transfers.
Some people serve as accountants for the gang, and prosecutors say one bank account run by the Nuestra Familia exceeded $250,000. Other members specialize in making knives, smuggling contraband into prisons, or vetting prospective members through background checks for things the gang considers red flags, like prior cooperation with law enforcement or sex charges.
The targets of two murder conspiracies included a man whose wife had testified in a criminal case, and a longtime Nuestra Familia member named Matt Rocha, who was involved in a power struggle with Perez that culminated with Rocha being stabbed on a prison yard. After surviving the hit, Rocha agreed to testify for prosecutors and became the star witness at trial. He said on the stand he hopes to be released from prison someday.
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