http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/4606334.html
AP Texas News



March 6, 2007, 12:10PM
Prison gang chief set to die for 1994 double slaying


By MICHAEL GRACZYK Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

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HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A leader in a notorious prison gang who authorities said sanctioned more than a dozen killings during an unprecedented wave of violence in San Antonio in the 1990s headed to the Texas death chamber Tuesday evening for a double slaying in the Alamo city.

Robert Perez, 48, who rose to the rank of general in the military-structured Mexican Mafia gang, would be the seventh prisoner executed this year in Texas, the nation's most active death penalty state, and the first of two in as many nights.

Appeals were exhausted for Perez. A civil lawsuit on his behalf challenging the Texas execution procedures was dismissed in a Houston federal court last week.

Perez already was headed for a federal life prison term on racketeering and conspiracy convictions for a series of robberies, drug deals and murders in San Antonio from 1994 through 1997 when he was tried on state charges for the 1994 slayings of Jose Travieso and James Rivas.

Their fatal shootings came during what authorities said was an internal power struggle within the prison gang, which lost its Texas founder and president, Heriberto "Herbie" Huerta, when he was convicted in 1994 on federal racketeering charges and sentenced to life in federal prison. Huerta's demise left a split in the group founded to provide protection for Hispanic inmates in Texas prisons.

Perez, on probation for a manslaughter conviction, took over one of the gang's factions, and the rivalry with another faction prompted the killings of Travieso, 34, who in a wheelchair with injuries from a previous shooting, and Rivas, 27.

Travieso's nephew, who was at the shooting scene, testified against Perez, along with two of Perez's companions. Another witness was an informant who had served as Perez's triggerman.

Evidence also tied Perez, the father of eight, to more than a dozen other slayings, including an infamous San Antonio gangland-style execution of five people in 1997 known as the West French Place killings. The trial was moved from San Antonio to Dallas because of publicity in Perez's hometown.

"We presented evidence of between 12 and 18 homicides, all of which occurred while Robert was general of the Mexican Mafia here in San Antonio," said federal prosecutor Mary Green, who was a Bexar County assistant district attorney when she tried Perez. "I found out later he never pulled the trigger after the double in April 1994. All the others were ones he ordered through the years."

Perez declined to speak with reporters in the weeks preceding his execution date. He did not testify at his capital murder trial.

"That was his choice," defense lawyer David Bires said. "I felt like he had a fairly decent self-defense claim.

"There had been essentially another group of people that was plotting to assassinate him and the two groups came into contact and it resulted in a shooting. There was evidence shots were fired from both sides."

But Bires said without Perez's own testimony, "It was hard to make self-defense fly. ... Then the punishment phase was so horrendous, proving up 13 other homicides. The punishment phase was absolutely gruesome."

Jurors sentenced him to death.

On an Internet site inmates use to seek penpals, Perez said he couldn't promise letter writers much more than friendship and a "vow to be honest, respectful, understanding and a very good listener. I give you my loyalty in all aspects."

Jeff Mulliner, who was an assistant Bexar County district attorney who also helped prosecute Perez, said Perez was "someone who did bad things and has a whole dimensional shading to his character." But Mulliner, now in private practice, also found Perez to have "an abundance of charisma, a keen intellect, a sharp wit and a sense of humor."

"I kind of appreciated all those things about him," Mulliner said. "Other than French Place, which is a footnote, I believe part of the honor of Robert Perez is he was not dangerous to an elderly lady trying to cross the street or to a young man on the bus to work. I think the only people in danger from Robert Perez were people he was associated with that didn't follow the rules."

Set to follow Perez to the death chamber Wednesday evening was Joseph Nichols, convicted in the fatal shooting of a Houston convenience store clerk more than 25 years ago.

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On the Net:

Robert Perez http://www.deathrow-usa.us/RobertPerez.htm

Texas Department of Criminal Justice execution schedule http://www.tdcj.state.tx.us/stat/schedu ... utions.htm