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Teen on trial for gang beating


By ROB SEAL
rseal@potomacnews.com
Tuesday, November 15, 2005


An 18-year-old Manassas-area man was on trial Monday for allegedly participating in the gang beating of a 14-year-old boy.

Several members of Mara Salvatrucha, a street gang better known as MS-13, attacked the boy Feb. 23 as he walked home from a Stonewall Jackson Middle School basketball game, the victim testified Monday.

Juan Cruz Hernandez is accused of being one of the attackers, and is charged with aggravated malicious wounding and criminal gang participation. Hernandez pleaded not guilty, and denies being a current member of the gang or taking part in the beating.

After leaving the basketball game in February, the boy was walking down Community Drive toward his home in the Iron Gate community.

A black Honda pulled up, and four or five MS-13 members jumped out and started flashing gang symbols and shouting, said the boy, now 15.

The victim - who said he
occasionally hung out with members of rival gang the South Side Locos - ran, but a thrown baseball bat brought him down, he said. He was beaten badly with what he said were metal baseball bats, and stabbed twice in the back.

One of the stab wounds measured 7.5 centimeters across, according to Hani Seoudi, the Fairfax surgeon who treated the boy. The other punctured a lung.

The beating took place about 7 p.m. in the yard of a Community Drive resident, who testified Monday that he saw the attack from inside his house and called 911.

The boy identified Hernandez as one of his attackers.

“I took my hand off my face and saw everyone who was hitting me,� the boy said in court Monday.

Hernandez, who is originally from El Salvador, testified through a translator that he is a former member of MS-13, but said he was no long with the gang at the time of the attack, and that his involvement is a case of mistaken identity.

Hernandez said that on the night of the beating he was hanging out with a MS-13 member named Saul Antonio Mendoza and some others that Hernandez didn’t know.

But Mendoza and the others - who were driving in a dark-colored Honda - dropped Hernandez off at his mother’s house about 6:45 the night of the beating, Hernandez said.

The family, including Hernandez, drove to Warrenton to help his mother in her janitorial duties at Dominion Power, both Hernandez and his younger brother testified Monday.

Hernandez said he was on the way to Warrenton at the time of the beating, and that the first he heard of it was the next day.

Mendoza was arrested for the attack and convicted of criminal gang participation and malicious wounding in October.

Another juvenile was charged in connection with the beating and deported, Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Elizabeth Millette said.

Defense attorney Margaret M. DeWilde is expected to continue Hernandez’s defense today.