Jaxon Van Derbeken
Updated 6:57 pm, Thursday, September 26, 2013
sfgate.com

A 22-year-old gang member - who reportedly flashed gang signs at the victim's parents when he was convicted of murdering their 14-year-old son - has been sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.

A jury had found Rony Aguilera guilty on July 3 in the gang-motivated sword attack and robbery on Ivan Miranda, a slaying he later boasted about during a secretly recorded conversation with a government informant.

During the trial, Aguilera twice flashed signs at the victim's family - once as he was being led from the courtroom after he was convicted - prosecutors said. His attorney, David Simerly, said his client simply was acknowledging the presence of a police officer.

Aguilera was sentenced Tuesday to 40 years to life in prison by San Francisco Judge Harold Kahn.

The July 31, 2008, slaying threw a spotlight on the city's now-abandoned practice of giving juvenile felons sanctuary from possible deportation.

At the time of the slaying, Aguilera - then 17 and in the U.S. illegally from Honduras - had been shielded from being reported to immigration officers by San Francisco juvenile officials, despite his having been found responsible for a felony assault by a juvenile court judge.

The controversial sanctuary policy of automatically shielding juvenile offenders was abandoned in the face of public outrage, although the debate on whether to report felony offenders to immigration continues.

The sanctuary policy came under fire after Edwin Ramos, an alleged illegal immigrant from El Salvador who compiled a record of gang-related crimes as a juvenile, was charged with the slayings of a father and his two sons in their car in the Excelsior neighborhood. Ramos was ultimately convicted, while a second defendant he blamed for the shooting awaits trial.

Police believe that, like Ramos, Aguilera was a member of the MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha) gang. Aguilera, known as "Guerrillero," carried out the slaying with another gang member, then-16-year-old Marlon Rivera. Rivera was convicted of murder, and sentenced to 35 years to life last week.

Ivan was stabbed on a street in the Excelsior neighborhood a few hours after the relative of an MS-13 member was wounded in a shooting. Gang members blamed the rival Norteño group, and several went looking for Norteños to attack, investigators said.

Ivan had no connection to the Norteños, police said, but the gang members attacked him anyway as he talked with two friends on a street corner.

The boy was stabbed with what police described as a Japanese-style sword and was robbed of the iPod he was returning to his friend. When he tried to run, two assailants chased him down and stabbed him through the neck, nearly decapitating him, police said.

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/...ng-4847595.php