David Martinez, a member of the Mongols bike gang, was sentenced to 10 years in jail Tuesday after pleading no contest in November to prices of voluntary manslaughter for killing a Pomona police officer throughout a 2014 raid.
Martinez has already been tried twice for the killing, and his attorneys have been hoping he could possibly be instantly freed, since he has spent greater than eight years behind bars. Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Jack Backyard, in the meantime, pushed for 33 years to life in jail, mentioned Det. Ray Lugo with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Division.
The decide handed down a 10-year time period, which implies Martinez — who shot SWAT Officer Shaun Diamond with a 24-gauge shotgun, severing his backbone and shattering his jaw — could possibly be out of jail as quickly as March.
At some point after the Oct. 28, 2014, capturing, Diamond was taken off life assist and died at Pasadena’s Huntington Hospital.
Following the capturing, Martinez, 44, was tried for first-degree homicide and located not responsible, however the jury deadlocked on a depend of second-degree homicide, and the decide declared a mistrial. In a second trial, jurors discovered him not responsible of second-degree homicide however deadlocked on two lesser prices of voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm on a police officer.
Though Martinez pleaded no contest to the lesser prices in November, he maintained that he didn’t realize it was police getting into his household dwelling in San Gabriel when he fired his shotgun.
Diamond was amongst a number of officers serving a search warrant. After knocking, they used a instrument to pressure open the door. Martinez claimed to have shot the officer believing he was a fellow Mongol breaking in.
A lawyer for Martinez mentioned at his most up-to-date trial that his consumer had needed to give up the gang, and subsequently feared members of the Mongols had come on the evening of the raid. Prosecutors countered that Martinez had saved his tattoos and continued to speak with the gang.
“A part of his protection was he was afraid for his life — he thought the Mongols have been coming — however he will get tons of calls from Mongols,” Det. Lugo advised The Instances, expressing his dissatisfaction with the size of Martinez’s jail time period.
The ten-year sentence signifies that Martinez could possibly be launched within the weeks to return. By March, he could have served 85% of his sentence, the statutory minimal for violent crimes in California.
At Tuesday’s sentencing, Lugo additionally forged doubt on the impartiality of the forepersons of juries for Martinez’s homicide trials. The foreperson on the primary jury went with a fellow juror to go to Martinez’s household dwelling and have espresso together with his mom “a pair days after the trial,” he mentioned.
The Instances reviewed a recorded telephone name, made after the conclusion of the primary trial, by which the lady could be heard advising Martinez on his authorized scenario, and the 2 log out by saying they love one another.
The foreperson for the second trial’s jury was “planning on writing a script for a film” in regards to the trial, Lugo added.
The Mongols, a infamous bike gang shaped in Montebello within the Seventies, reportedly started with a gaggle of Latino males who had been denied membership within the Hells Angels.
In 2018, a federal jury convicted the group of racketeering. In October 2022, a decide denied a movement for a brand new trial amid claims that the membership’s president had acted as a confidential informant for legislation enforcement.
