Posted on Sun, Jun. 26, 2005
Federal efforts fail to contain prison gang
Nuestra Familia strengthened in both jail, street operations
By JULIA REYNOLDS and GEORGE B. SANCHEZ
Herald Staff Writers
Federal efforts to disable the Nuestra Familia prison gang have failed to halt communication between its leaders and may actually have facilitated the gang's criminal activities.
While awaiting trial for the past four years, gang captains and generals have continued to order crimes in Monterey County and other areas from a federal holding facility in Alameda County, according to investigators and FBI reports obtained by The Herald.
The so-called "final five" in custody in Alameda County -- the top echelon of the organization's leadership -- are the last of 22 Nuestra Familia members and associates to plead guilty in a federal racketeering case that began five years ago with 11 indictments in Salinas.
Nuestra Familia generals James "Tibbs" Morado, Cornelio Tristan and James "Pinky" Hernandez, and captains Gerald "Cuete" Rubalcaba and Tex Hernandez were already serving life sentences in California when they were indicted by a federal grand jury in 2001. The rationale for the federal case, officials said, was to cripple the gang's power base by dispersing its leaders into federal facilities around the country.
The five defendants were taken from the gang's headquarters at Pelican Bay State Prison to the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. At the maximum-security state prison, interim gang leaders were installed while the five awaited trial, said Devan Hawkes, a specialist with Pelican Bay's gang investigation unit.
Now, as the five are poised to enter the federal prison system following plea bargains, investigators say new leaders already have surfaced in Pelican Bay. Those inmates have begun to set up control of street regiments in Monterey County and other areas.
Hawkes and others, including gang members, said two top generals have emerged: David "DC" Cervantes and James "Conejo" Perez.
They share ultimate authority over all the Nuestra Familia's prison and street operations. Investigators said Cervantes is focused on gang activity in Monterey County, Watsonville, and Gilroy, while Perez oversees Oakland, San Francisco, and other Bay Area communities. In recent months, they have appointed captains to oversee street gang operations in Santa Clara, Sonoma, Alameda, Kings and Stanislaus counties, Hawkes said.
Written message|
From prison, Cervantes and Perez sent out word that gang members on the streets were to have no contact with the former leaders incarcerated in Alameda County. Hawkes said that the written message was sent out last fall and that a copy was intercepted by the Pelican Bay gang intelligence unit in March.
The message said that the five defendants "remain in good standing but will no longer direct or hold any authority" except to establish Nuestra Familia regiments in the federal institutions where they are to be housed.
Further messages announced a restructuring of the role of Norteño street gang members under the Nuestra Familia's leadership. Members were warned to strictly abide by instructions.
"Failure to do so... will be considered an act of treason," one message states. "We have no time for any hurt feelings or games. It's time to get back on track."
The intercepted letters confirm what a defecting gang leader from Salinas told authorities two years ago at the Santa Rita Jail, according to FBI reports.
"The NF is functioning better and is more dangerous than it was in the past," Ceasar "Lobo" Ramirez told agents.
Despite orders from new generals Cervantes and Perez, gang members and their intermediaries continue to communicate with the five federal defendants in Santa Rita.
"We're seeing, still, people going to Santa Rita Jail, meeting with them, and taking their messages back to the streets," Hawkes said.
Salinas resident Crystal Morado, perhaps unwittingly, was expected to be one of those couriers, investigators say.
Morado's body was found Jan. 31 on Hecker Pass Road near Gilroy. No suspects have been named, but the 20-year-old woman had recently married James Morado, one of the generals held in Alameda County.
In an intercepted prison message, Nuestra Familia leaders explained that Crystal Morado was killed because she was no longer "functioning," according to a specialist who has investigated the gang for federal and state agencies for 15 years.
"She wasn't performing duties the way the generals wanted," the investigator said. "She really didn't want to get caught up in that stuff, and when she resisted, she was killed."
Salinas regiment|
In another recent instance, authorities intercepted a message from deposed general Cornelio Tristan ordering the re-establishment of a Nuestra Familia regiment in Salinas and appointing a leader for the city.
Sgt. Dave Shaw of the Salinas Police Department's Violence Suppression Unit said police know Nuestra Familia's messages continue to filter out of the prisons.
"For us, there's nothing we can do about it," Shaw said. Investigators say the prison messages have been found during searches of homes in Salinas.
FBI reports show that the five leaders and other co-defendants moved to Alameda County were housed in neighboring cells, leased by the federal government, enabling easy communication. They also were often gathered together in holding cells and vans when they were transported to the federal courthouse in San Francisco.
Ramirez, the Salinas defector, told authorities that during one such trip, Morado and Tristan were able to directly chastise their co-defendants over internal gang disagreements. In Pelican Bay's high-security units, the same level of communication would have required use of smuggled, coded messages.
"It was a big mistake to place the defendants in county jail," Ramirez told the FBI.
State prosecutors have expressed concern about the federal government's inability to curtail the activities of incarcerated gang leaders. Federal prosecutors are attempting to have them moved to federal prisons, which would require the state to set aside their state sentences. County-level prosecutors are reluctant to do so.
"Our concern is that a commutation of sentences ends state custody," Ventura County Deputy District Attorney Patricia Murphy said last month. "We are reluctant to do that because we have no control over what happens in the federal system."
Spreading disease|
One worry is that the gang will spread within the federal system. In a Sacramento hearing last week, the state's Board of Prison Terms grilled prosecutors about that possibility.
Anjali Chanturvedi, chief of the organized crime unit at the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco, said the gang's opportunities for spreading into the federal system are limited.
"The Nuestra Familia is a Northern California-based gang. They don't have a base on the streets, as far as I know," she said.
Chanturvedi argued that in Colorado's federal supermax prison, for example, Nuestra Familia leaders would be hard-pressed to find a support base.
"I would respectfully disagree with the U.S. attorney," said Al Valdez, an Orange County district attorney's investigator who has led gang training for the federal Bureau of Prisons. In the same Colorado facility, he said, kingpin Larry Hoover of the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples set up one "board" to oversee the gang's street operations and another to handle activities in the prisons.
The Nuestra Familia is more efficient and better organized than other gangs, Valdez said.
"They have plans and they have connections," he said. The gang may or may not succeed in gaining a strong base in federal prisons, he said, "but they certainly will attempt it."
FBI documents indicate they already have.
"The NF is also recruiting members for the federal prison system in order to branch out," an informant told agents. Gang captain Sheldon Villanueva was instructed to accept an early plea agreement so he could set up operations in federal prisons, according to an FBI report.
Another member, Andrew "Mad Dog" Cervantes, is "running the NF in the federal prison system," that report said. Villanueva is currently housed at a federal prison in Louisiana, while Cervantes is in Atlanta.
"The expectation is that they will set something up there," Hawkes said.
Even so, Hawkes said, Monterey County might be better off with the leaders in the federal system.
"Because while they're in Santa Rita County Jail," he said, "there are people in Salinas going to visit and taking orders back with them."
Federal efforts fail to contain prison gang
Nuestra Familia strengthened in both jail, street operations
By JULIA REYNOLDS and GEORGE B. SANCHEZ
Herald Staff Writers
Federal efforts to disable the Nuestra Familia prison gang have failed to halt communication between its leaders and may actually have facilitated the gang's criminal activities.
While awaiting trial for the past four years, gang captains and generals have continued to order crimes in Monterey County and other areas from a federal holding facility in Alameda County, according to investigators and FBI reports obtained by The Herald.
The so-called "final five" in custody in Alameda County -- the top echelon of the organization's leadership -- are the last of 22 Nuestra Familia members and associates to plead guilty in a federal racketeering case that began five years ago with 11 indictments in Salinas.
Nuestra Familia generals James "Tibbs" Morado, Cornelio Tristan and James "Pinky" Hernandez, and captains Gerald "Cuete" Rubalcaba and Tex Hernandez were already serving life sentences in California when they were indicted by a federal grand jury in 2001. The rationale for the federal case, officials said, was to cripple the gang's power base by dispersing its leaders into federal facilities around the country.
The five defendants were taken from the gang's headquarters at Pelican Bay State Prison to the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin. At the maximum-security state prison, interim gang leaders were installed while the five awaited trial, said Devan Hawkes, a specialist with Pelican Bay's gang investigation unit.
Now, as the five are poised to enter the federal prison system following plea bargains, investigators say new leaders already have surfaced in Pelican Bay. Those inmates have begun to set up control of street regiments in Monterey County and other areas.
Hawkes and others, including gang members, said two top generals have emerged: David "DC" Cervantes and James "Conejo" Perez.
They share ultimate authority over all the Nuestra Familia's prison and street operations. Investigators said Cervantes is focused on gang activity in Monterey County, Watsonville, and Gilroy, while Perez oversees Oakland, San Francisco, and other Bay Area communities. In recent months, they have appointed captains to oversee street gang operations in Santa Clara, Sonoma, Alameda, Kings and Stanislaus counties, Hawkes said.
Written message|
From prison, Cervantes and Perez sent out word that gang members on the streets were to have no contact with the former leaders incarcerated in Alameda County. Hawkes said that the written message was sent out last fall and that a copy was intercepted by the Pelican Bay gang intelligence unit in March.
The message said that the five defendants "remain in good standing but will no longer direct or hold any authority" except to establish Nuestra Familia regiments in the federal institutions where they are to be housed.
Further messages announced a restructuring of the role of Norteño street gang members under the Nuestra Familia's leadership. Members were warned to strictly abide by instructions.
"Failure to do so... will be considered an act of treason," one message states. "We have no time for any hurt feelings or games. It's time to get back on track."
The intercepted letters confirm what a defecting gang leader from Salinas told authorities two years ago at the Santa Rita Jail, according to FBI reports.
"The NF is functioning better and is more dangerous than it was in the past," Ceasar "Lobo" Ramirez told agents.
Despite orders from new generals Cervantes and Perez, gang members and their intermediaries continue to communicate with the five federal defendants in Santa Rita.
"We're seeing, still, people going to Santa Rita Jail, meeting with them, and taking their messages back to the streets," Hawkes said.
Salinas resident Crystal Morado, perhaps unwittingly, was expected to be one of those couriers, investigators say.
Morado's body was found Jan. 31 on Hecker Pass Road near Gilroy. No suspects have been named, but the 20-year-old woman had recently married James Morado, one of the generals held in Alameda County.
In an intercepted prison message, Nuestra Familia leaders explained that Crystal Morado was killed because she was no longer "functioning," according to a specialist who has investigated the gang for federal and state agencies for 15 years.
"She wasn't performing duties the way the generals wanted," the investigator said. "She really didn't want to get caught up in that stuff, and when she resisted, she was killed."
Salinas regiment|
In another recent instance, authorities intercepted a message from deposed general Cornelio Tristan ordering the re-establishment of a Nuestra Familia regiment in Salinas and appointing a leader for the city.
Sgt. Dave Shaw of the Salinas Police Department's Violence Suppression Unit said police know Nuestra Familia's messages continue to filter out of the prisons.
"For us, there's nothing we can do about it," Shaw said. Investigators say the prison messages have been found during searches of homes in Salinas.
FBI reports show that the five leaders and other co-defendants moved to Alameda County were housed in neighboring cells, leased by the federal government, enabling easy communication. They also were often gathered together in holding cells and vans when they were transported to the federal courthouse in San Francisco.
Ramirez, the Salinas defector, told authorities that during one such trip, Morado and Tristan were able to directly chastise their co-defendants over internal gang disagreements. In Pelican Bay's high-security units, the same level of communication would have required use of smuggled, coded messages.
"It was a big mistake to place the defendants in county jail," Ramirez told the FBI.
State prosecutors have expressed concern about the federal government's inability to curtail the activities of incarcerated gang leaders. Federal prosecutors are attempting to have them moved to federal prisons, which would require the state to set aside their state sentences. County-level prosecutors are reluctant to do so.
"Our concern is that a commutation of sentences ends state custody," Ventura County Deputy District Attorney Patricia Murphy said last month. "We are reluctant to do that because we have no control over what happens in the federal system."
Spreading disease|
One worry is that the gang will spread within the federal system. In a Sacramento hearing last week, the state's Board of Prison Terms grilled prosecutors about that possibility.
Anjali Chanturvedi, chief of the organized crime unit at the U.S. attorney's office in San Francisco, said the gang's opportunities for spreading into the federal system are limited.
"The Nuestra Familia is a Northern California-based gang. They don't have a base on the streets, as far as I know," she said.
Chanturvedi argued that in Colorado's federal supermax prison, for example, Nuestra Familia leaders would be hard-pressed to find a support base.
"I would respectfully disagree with the U.S. attorney," said Al Valdez, an Orange County district attorney's investigator who has led gang training for the federal Bureau of Prisons. In the same Colorado facility, he said, kingpin Larry Hoover of the Chicago-based Gangster Disciples set up one "board" to oversee the gang's street operations and another to handle activities in the prisons.
The Nuestra Familia is more efficient and better organized than other gangs, Valdez said.
"They have plans and they have connections," he said. The gang may or may not succeed in gaining a strong base in federal prisons, he said, "but they certainly will attempt it."
FBI documents indicate they already have.
"The NF is also recruiting members for the federal prison system in order to branch out," an informant told agents. Gang captain Sheldon Villanueva was instructed to accept an early plea agreement so he could set up operations in federal prisons, according to an FBI report.
Another member, Andrew "Mad Dog" Cervantes, is "running the NF in the federal prison system," that report said. Villanueva is currently housed at a federal prison in Louisiana, while Cervantes is in Atlanta.
"The expectation is that they will set something up there," Hawkes said.
Even so, Hawkes said, Monterey County might be better off with the leaders in the federal system.
"Because while they're in Santa Rita County Jail," he said, "there are people in Salinas going to visit and taking orders back with them."
