Mexican Mafia Case Ready to Go to Jurors

The jury in the Los Angeles trial of 13 suspected members and associates of the Mexican Mafia prison gang is expected to begin deliberations today after opposing sides completed their final summations Thursday.

The panel of seven men and five women, whose identities have been closely guarded since the case began in November, must receive two hours of jury instruction before beginning deliberations, probably sometime around noon, court officials said.

A mountain of evidence accumulated over six months of trial--the testimony of 104 prosecution witnesses, more than 300 video and audiotapes and more than 55,000 pages of documents--is available for the panel to go over. The case marks the first time federal authorities have brought a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, case against a Southern California gang.

Federal prosecutors accuse the defendants of 29 charges alleging racketeering, conspiracy, murder, extortion and other crimes as part of an illicit scheme by the Eme, as the gang is commonly called, to extend its influence from prison to local street gangs. Among the murders alleged are those of several gang members who opposed the Eme, and three unpaid advisors to the 1992 film about the group, “American Me.”

But the trial spotlight didn’t fall on the volumes of secretly recorded tapes of reputed Eme meetings. Instead, it focused on Ernest “Chuco” Castro, a former Mexican Mafia member who agreed to turn against the group. Defense attorneys castigated Castro, calling him, among other things, a “rat,” a “liar” and a “cockroach.”

But in the last closing statement Thursday, the government’s chief prosecutor defended Castro and his cooperation with law enforcement. Assistant U.S. Atty. Lisa Lench mockingly dismissed many of the defense’s contentions, saying Castro wasn’t a “Svengali” who led the defendants astray.

“No one has that much power,” she said.

She argued that the defendants were predisposed to violent acts and illicit schemes and they didn’t need Castro’s help. Much of the evidence, she reminded the jurors, came from the very mouths of the defendants as caught on tape.

“You’re not here to determine the guilt of Ernest Castro,” Lench said. “That’s for another fact-finding body. That’s for another day. . . . This case is about the guilt of the defendants, not about Ernest Castro.”

Lench then went over many of the defense’s assertions, offering different explanations that she said pointed to the defendants’ guilt.

To refute defense attorney Jay Lichtman’s contention that his client, Raymond “Huero Shy” Shryock, opposed the Eme practice of forcing gangs to pay “taxes” on drug sales, Lench cited taped conversations that showed Shryock was receiving drug taxes. “That’s my whole livelihood,” she quoted him saying on one tape.

To rebut defense attorney Elsa Leyva’s argument that her client, Jesse “Pelon” Moreno, wasn’t involved in a conspiracy to murder three Boyle Heights gang members, Lench asked the jury to consider a March 30, 1994, tape in which Moreno says the three must be killed before a truce could be reached with the Eme.

To respond to defense contentions that the Eme is a myth, Lench had a simple answer. Ask the families of the victims of Eme schemes or violence if the Mexican Mafia exists, she challenged.

“The terrified mother [of assault victim Eduardo Soriano, who testified during the trial] doesn’t think the Eme is a myth,” Lench said.

Lench finished her closing statement after 50 minutes, asking the jury to convict all 13 defendants.

Defense attorney Bernard Rosen accused authorities of manufacturing evidence.

Rosen also suggested that a conversation between LAPD Det. Laurence Martinez and Jose “Sluggo” Pineda had never occurred, because the detective couldn’t remember when or where it took place.

To underscore his point about Martinez’s inability to remember, Rosen told the jury of the opening line of a song, “Where or When.”

Before he could clear his throat and sing the opening lines, U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew broke in to ask, “You’re not going to sing, are you?”

That brought a wave a laughter from the packed courtroom, but Rosen sang the lyrics anyway.

But the best line may have come Wednesday when Lichtman coined a catchy rhyme to debunk the government’s racketeering case.

“A RICO case it is not,” he said. “ ‘Chuco’ Castro is all they’ve got.”