While the Mexican Mafia had initially been created to protect Mexicans in prison, there was a perceived level of abuse by members of La eMe towards the imprisoned chicanos from rural farming areas of Northern California. Agents only need to know that there is a conspiracy, Coulson said. Main Office: It's a business. Credit: Janjaap Dekker FBI informant Daniel Hernandez at a Nuestra Familia gang meeting in Rohnert Park. Subpoenaed phone records show that an eight-minute call was placed from a Salinas gang member's cell phone to Hernandez five days before the killing, but there is no FBI report or transcript of the call to indicate he had taped it, as required by the informant's agreement with the FBI. "It is extremely difficult to supervise the informant," said Steven Cohen, the former chief of the Violent Gangs Unit at the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York. The investigation, dubbed Operation Black Widow, was a joint effort by the FBI and state and local police in Northern California to break the Nuestra Familia gang, which police say operated from . In legal motions filed over the past four weeks, defense attorneys for 15 alleged members of the Nuestra Familia the prison gang that governs the Northern California-based Norteo and. Can he maintain credibility with fellow gangsters and yet prevent violent acts plotted by them in his presence? She had recently worked in a Salinas sandwich shop. The Bay Areas top federal prosecutor announced a sweeping array of indictments targeting the notorious Nuestra Familia prison gang, boasting that a five-year operation had culminated in a takedown of the organizations leadership responsible for an expanse of drug trafficking and brutal street violence spanning Northern California. The cops had to call 300 people to tell them there were death threats against them. An indictment merely alleges that crimes have been committed, and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. State and federal law enforcement officials chose Salinas for the raids because for years the city has been known as a hub of Nuestra Familias activity. Harriette Cole: I don't want the neighbor's kids at my house, Dear Abby: My wife said she doesn't like it, but it's part of my life, Ask Amy: I feel guilty for not speaking up about my co-worker's activities, Ask Amy: I'm your cabin housekeeper, and you apparently have no idea what I do. This is a carousel. "It doesn't matter what he says. The deputies who arrested her were apparently unaware of the federal charges. Robert was a member of the Bay Area News Group reporting team awarded the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Reporting for East Bay Times coverage of the fatal "Ghost Ship" fire. Communicating with paroled gang members out in the streets, Nuestra Familia leaders have been able to order crimes and collect a percentage of the take from robberies and sales of methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana by the state's thousands of Norteos -- Northern California gang members. In a jailhouse interview, Frias said that days before the shooting, he was present when a gang commander placed a cell phone call to Hernandez in which Hernandez authorized the hit. But he says the defense's claims against the government are actually more serious than entrapment, in which the rights of a suspect are violated, because they allege the government actually was in a position of knowingly tolerating crimes. [20], Eventually, three new generals came to power at Pelican Bay, yet two were demoted, leaving only David "DC" Cervantes as the highest-ranking member of the gang in California. Two of the defendants face the death penalty for ordering murders related to the drug trade. The indictment outlines each position according to the NF Constitution. But to those who choose to stop the violence, there are available resources to help them. Huerta is known among gang members as the wife of Joseph "Pinky" Hernandez, one the Nuestra Familia"s top leaders serving a life sentence in a Colorado "supermax" prison. Lock This is not done yet.. The FBI said gang commanders sent orders from six prisons in the state: Pelican Bay State Prison, High Desert State Prison, California State Prison-Sacramento, California State Prison-Solano, Pleasant Valley State Prison and Salinas Valley State Prison. Details: The operation was conducted with the help of a highly connected inside source -- Daniel Hernandez, the street general who had confirmed that the green light . Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. Craig Fair, head of the FBIs San Francisco area field office, said the operation announced Thursday was one of the largest gang takedowns in FBI San Francisco divisions history.. Gracia stepped down after publicly proclaiming her love for Hanrahan at a City Hall press conference. Over the past decade there have been several high-profile cases in which law enforcement involvement with informants has resulted in legal problems, including the prosecution of El Rukn gang members in Chicago. Outstanding warrants remain on seven unnamed people. Arizona, Florida,[2] Georgia, Idaho,[3] Nevada,[4] Kansas,[5] New Mexico, Northern California, Nuestra Familia are prison enemies of the Southern chicanos who consisted of La eMe, better known as the Mexican Mafia. [20], While Nuestra Familia is primarily a Chicano gang, membership sometimes extends to other Latinos as well as non-Latinos. One FBI supervisor was starkly realistic about the whole process. The largest investigation into both the Norteos and Nuestra Familia, this operation was characterized by more than 20 arrests. In a $5 million crime-fighting effort dubbed Operation Black Widow, several Nuestra Familia members agreed to become FBI informants; they wanted protection when they found themselves on the gang's hit list, or they cut a deal as the government was about to indict them. When it concluded in April 2001, after a $5 million. In grand jury testimony, a former cellmate said Hernandez ordered 17 stabbings while in prison. This case is being prosecuted by the Organized Crime Strike Force of the United States Attorneys Office for the Northern District of California. For the FBI, infiltrating such an organization from the outside was virtually impossible. Members of the organization are considered to have taken a "blood oath" to join the gang, and are considered lifelong participants. Authorities seized 40 pounds of cocaine, 14 pounds of marijuana, as well as other drugs. "Brown Bob," had spent most of his life inside California's state prisons, rising to become one of the highest ranking members of Nuestra Familia, the notoriously vicious Northern California Latino prison gang. [21] Nuestra Familia members often use the image of a sombrero with a machete as their gang symbol. "If (suspects) commit a single overt act that furthers the conspiracy -- buying a gun or a car, for example -- that's enough to arrest them. By disrupting gang leadership, we reduce violence on our streets. "He was directed that any telephone calls he made, any meeting he had with various NF members or associates, he was to record the conversations," FBI Special Agent Sean Ragan told the grand jury. After months of investigation, at least 37 alleged gang members were arrested during the raids conducted. State gang czar Paul Seave said he was pleased that so many law enforcement agencies came together. And the right choice is looking away.". She previously covered D.C. politics and California lawsuits for McClatchy's publications, including the Sacramento Bee, as a national real-time reporter. At least one of those sought had Santa Cruz County ties, and several others were targeted in the San Jose area, authorities said. Very seldom a white face will have a black mind.Nikki Giovanni (b. It should bring them some reality that its not romantic at all.. The gang has strict categories of military-style membership ranks, ranging from a Category One member, who might strive to be the "regiment commander" of a city, to Category Three, one of only three positions on the gang's governing board in Pelican Bay. Blood in the Fields also documents the history of Operation Black Widow, the FBI's questionable decade-long effort to dismantle the Nuestra Familia, along with its compromised informants and the turf wars it created with local law enforcement agencies. San Jose: (408) 535-5061. . Government agents knew that working with such violent criminals was risky. While all Nuestra Familia soldiers and captains in California are expected to follow the orders of Cervantes, a small percentage of the gang remains loyal to the former generals and captains imprisoned in Colorado. tape telephone conversations with gang members and set up organizational meetings in Rohnert Park, Salinas, San Francisco, Milpitas, Tracy and Sacramento that the FBI would secretly videotape. "Courts tend to say this may well be something that should be policed internally, but they haven't been ready to give the benefit to defendants," Cohen said. Federal investigators refuse to comment on the case, saying they will eventually answer in court, and at least one local law enforcer calls the charge bogus. The largest of the federal investigations was Operation Black Widow. Others arrested include Castroville residents Dakota Vernon Casperson and Sheena Nicole Casperson. Hanrahan was a Nuestra Familia leader from Salinas who oversaw drug-dealing crews in that city and conveyed orders to the Nuestra Familias Watsonville regiment. The California Department of Corrections says Nuestra Familia controls street gangs from Bakersfield to the Oregon border. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Attorney General Jerry Brown and a host of officials announced the results of the action Thursday. The only idea of wit, or rather that inferior variety of the electric talent which prevails occasionally in the North, and which, under the name of Wut, is so infinitely distressing to people of good taste, is laughing immoderately at stated intervals.Sydney Smith (17711845), A white face goes with a white mind. This book on the prison gang, Nuestra Familia is very in depth and gives a firsthand true account of one man's life in the gang. Some in law enforcement believe that, while fighting Nuestra Familia was worthwhile, younger members will soon rise to take leadership. "I find it to be a horse of a different color from using a low-level informant. Operation Black Widow. But a few higher-level suspects, including Montoya, are headed to federal court, where arraignments were under way Thursday. Because Operation Black Widow was supposed to be keeping constant tabs on Hernandez, the FBI and other agencies had to know that he was ordering crimes, and that was enough to make their behavior gross misconduct, Zilversmit argues. When he left prison, he became Nuestra Familia's "street liaison commander" in charge of all the gang's operations outside prison, according to court documents. In 2000 and 2001, 22 members were indicted on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) charges, including several who were allegedly serving as high-ranking gang leaders while confined in Pelican Bay. In early 2008, Hanrahan figured into local headlines when his girlfriend Sara Gracia was named to a Salinas police advisory commission, causing an uproar within the Police Department and with the public. Have a question about Government Services? The gang has been around since 1965, according to federal prosecutors, started inside Soledad prison to protect Hispanic inmates. "The more successful your informant becomes in the gang, the better, the more information you get. At least 37 alleged gang members and associates were in custody after hours of coordinated raids across Monterey County, ending months of investigation that culminated in what some call the largest law enforcement operation ever to target the Nuestra Familia, one of the Wests most violent crime organizations. [14] At the time of Operation Black Widow, law enforcement officials had estimated that Nuestra Familia was responsible for at least 600 murders in the previous 30 years. But police and the FBI, wanting to build their case, did not arrest the gang members for conspiracy to commit murder. On June 18, 2001, Hernandez told his handlers that a subordinate was distributing more than a dozen guns to young gang members in town, according to FBI reports. Ramirez told police upon his arrest as a co-conspirator in the murder that Hernandez, who had not yet been revealed as an informant, gave the go- ahead for the killing. Last fall, when Russoniello came to a Salinas gang summit for law enforcement, at least some of the time was spent on the early planning of Operation Knockout. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI (San Francisco, Sacramento, and Phoenix Divisions), the DEA, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the U.S. Get Morning Report and other email newsletters. Unbeknownst to him, he'd been snared in the web of Operation Black Widow, a three-year FBI sting operation that led to federal racketeering and murder indictments against 21 gang members. Hernandez cut a plea deal. The Nuestra Familia gang, which operates in and out of prisons, influences much of the criminal activity of thousands of Norteo gang members in Monterey and other California counties by ordering hits and demanding payments from drug sales, robberies and other gang crimes. State gang experts credit the Nuestra Familia with about 1,000 killings since it began in the late 1960s, with Norteo gang members claiming hundreds more lives. IRS delays tax deadline for Bay Area, but California hasn't followed: What should you do? ", Such is the risk the government runs in using criminal informants to help law enforcement efforts. Robert Sosa, at the time Nuestra Familia's General (or supreme commander), was man- dated to administer these resources to further collective interests but had in fact embezzled more than US$100,000 from the group's accounts. In all, 21 people were indicted in the FBI's three-year investigation into Nuestra Familia, code-named Operation Black Widow. Upon being paroled after serving more than six years for assault, he would become a paid informant and would not be prosecuted for racketeering in the current federal case in San Francisco, according to his agreement with the FBI and the U.S. attorney's office. In the aftermath of Operation Black Widow, the five highest-ranking leaders of Nuestra Familia, James "Tibbs" Morado, Joseph "Pinky" Hernandez, Gerald "Cuete" Rubalcaba, Cornelio Tristan, and Tex Marin Hernandez, were transferred to the United States Penitentiary, Florence ADX, the federal supermax prison in Colorado. One "test" a prospective member must pass to join Nuestra Familia is to have committed at least one murder for "the cause," according to a gang investigator with the state Corrections Department as well as Al Valdez, an investigator with the Orange County district attorney's office and a gang consultant with the state attorney general's office. 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operation black widow nuestra familia generals
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