Johnny Martinez has help from pillars of the group.
Officers from the American Civil Liberties Union, regulation professors, a pastor, a highschool principal and two commissioners of the Los Angeles County Probation Division have all urged a choose to grant him bail.
Besides Martinez isn’t any unusual defendant. Nicknamed “Crow,” he’s a member of the Mexican Mafia, federal prosecutors say, charged with ordering a collection of murders that allowed him to take care of a grip over road gangs and jail inmates in Orange County. Prosecutors say Martinez was caught on a wiretap threatening to have somebody shot within the head and boasting of a number of murders.
Martinez turned eligible for bail in December after his 1995 homicide conviction was overturned. Charged at 18 with the homicide of a person killed throughout a brawl, Martinez was convicted underneath the idea that the demise was a “pure and possible consequence” of taking part within the battle. Sentenced to 26 years to life in jail, Martinez spent the following three a long time submitting writs, appeals and petitions as a self-taught jailhouse lawyer.
After the state Legislature raised the usual of proof required to show a homicide, a choose diminished Martinez’s conviction to misdemeanor assault. However Martinez, now 48, didn’t stroll free as a result of a federal grand jury indicted him in 2022 for crimes he allegedly dedicated from state jail. Prosecutors allege he raked in unlawful income from gangs, drug sellers and jail inmates throughout Orange County.
“Anybody that was concerned in any form of legal ingredient, medication, any form of racket you possibly can consider, he acquired a share,” Martinez’s former right-hand man testified at a current trial of a co-defendant within the federal racketeering case.
Martinez has pleaded not responsible. His legal professionals requested a Justice of the Peace to launch him on bail awaiting his trial, scheduled for 2025. In help of their request, they filed a dozen letters that painting Martinez as a champion for civil rights, skillful litigator and advocate for peace.
Sean Garcia-Leys, a commissioner of the Los Angeles County Probation Division, mentioned he was first contacted by Martinez whereas working with the ACLU to defend two members of rival gangs in Placentia from a gang injunction. Martinez persuaded them to put aside their grievances and have become the “architect” of a county-wide gang truce, Garcia-Leys wrote.
“He persistently strives to enhance the lives of these round him,” he mentioned.
In an interview, Garcia-Leys mentioned he wrote the letter on behalf of his public-trust agency, the Peace and Justice Regulation Middle. “I undoubtedly didn’t achieve this in my capability as a probation oversight commissioner.”
Garcia-Leys mentioned he was conscious of the allegations within the indictment however stood by his place that Martinez needs to be launched on bail. The danger of letting somebody out of jail also needs to be weighed in opposition to the hurt brought on by retaining them locked up, he mentioned.
Martinez’s mom, Dolores Canales, herself a Probation Division commissioner, advised the choose: “After the whole lot my son has been by, you’d assume he could be stuffed with anger and bitterness. However his robust perception within the regulation and in justice is what retains him going.”
As commissioners, Canales and Garcia-Leys are tasked with oversight of a sprawling regulation enforcement company that administers the county’s juvenile halls.
In a letter, Canales mentioned her son’s participation in a 2011 starvation strike over circumstances within the maximum-security jail at Pelican Bay led to her personal “awakening as to the cruel actuality of human lives being warehoused, and that incarceration was not the answer however an ever-growing downside.”
Canales didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Courtroom information present Martinez obtained an award for “management improvement” final yr from Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who wrote: “I commend you in your advocacy and repair to our group!”
In a press release, Sarmiento mentioned he helps applications that assist “justice-impacted people” change their lives. Although the “overwhelming majority” don’t commit new crimes, he mentioned, “sadly, we all know that not all who take part in such efforts shall be profitable.”
Lecturers, nonprofit leaders, a psychiatrist and a highschool principal all urged the choose to see Martinez not as a risk to society however an asset. Angelica Camacho, assistant professor of legal justice at San Francisco State, referred to as Martinez a “extremely moral and principled man,” “robust champion of justice” and “warmhearted, caring particular person with an amicable private character.”
She described a profoundly totally different particular person from the one captured on a wiretap telling an Anaheim gang member who dared to interrupt him: “I’ve no downside, homeboy, exhibiting as much as a motherf—’s home and taking pictures them point-blank vary.”
In opposition to his request for bail, prosecutors filed in courtroom transcripts of calls that Martinez allegedly created from a smuggled cellphone that had been tapped by the FBI.
“For those who ever interrupt me ever once more,” Martinez mentioned, in accordance with a transcript, “your profession is over and I’m going to have you ever killed on the spot, OK ? My homeboy goes to place a gun to your head and f—ing shoot you.”
“If he thinks for one second that he can go in opposition to the Mexican Mafia — hey, I already put 4 folks six ft underneath,” Martinez mentioned. “If he needs to be the fifth, let’s go.”
Though a pastor who befriended Martinez advised the choose that in all their years of correspondence, not as soon as did he “ever recommend any affiliation with former gangs, notorious cartels or the Mexican Mafia,” prosecutors say there is no such thing as a doubt about his allegiances.
If his mom have been on her deathbed and one among his “brothers” requested him to do one thing, Martinez mentioned in one other intercepted name, “I have to reply the decision of obligation, you realize, as a result of that’s what I signed up for.”
Martinez is accused of ordering the theft of a drug vendor in Placentia who was killed when he resisted the assailants. Martinez additionally allegedly directed the beating of an inmate whose throat was slit and a thwarted hit on a person named Rick who Martinez believed was hitting on a feminine pal.
“I’m killing Rick,” Martinez advised her in a textual content message, in accordance with prosecutors. “You watch what I do to Rick, one other one bites the mud.”
Police arrested two males with weapons close to the meant sufferer’s house.
Martinez can be charged with conspiring to homicide three males who labored for him.
After falling out of favor with Martinez, Gregory “Snoopy” Munoz was crushed at Calipatria state jail, stabbed by two inmates the next week after which shot within the again after getting out of jail, prosecutors say.
One other lieutenant, Michael “Shaggy” Cooper, angered Martinez by mendacity about his drug use and accumulation of money owed. “I is perhaps a gangster,” Martinez advised Cooper in a wiretapped name, “however I’m additionally a f—ing Christian, you realize? One factor that the Bible teaches us, Shag, is the reality shall set you free.”
After Cooper admitted utilizing heroin, Martinez mentioned he didn’t tolerate dependancy amongst his “staff” as a result of “I count on them to get up within the morning and let their job be their excessive.”
“If you wish to be a part of the Crow group,” he mentioned, “I count on the most effective of the most effective, huge canine. I take pleasure in who we’re and, you realize, it’s about honor, integrity and representing to the fullest.
“Me personally, I don’t use medication,” Martinez mentioned.
Martinez’s jail disciplinary report, nevertheless, included write-ups for utilizing heroin and possessing remedy used to deal with opiate dependancy, prosecutors say.
Cooper was stabbed 17 instances by three inmates at Calipatria on Martinez’s orders, prosecutors allege. A yr later, Cooper was attacked once more in an Orange County jail by inmates who beat him and slashed his throat.
Cooper and Munoz survived, however one other of Martinez’s underlings didn’t. Accused of stealing cash in a drug deal, Richard Villeda was lured right into a automotive and shot, his physique dumped on a road in Orange with seven bullets in his head and again. The three gunmen have been convicted final yr of the homicide.
Prosecutors say Martinez was caught on a wiretap warning an previous pal about speaking to police. He introduced up Villeda and Munoz. “I acquired each of them guys like nothing,” he mentioned, in accordance with a transcript.
“Now don’t assume for one second,” Martinez advised the pal, “that I couldn’t have that finished to you.”
