Texas Mexican Mafia members get hefty sentences

Texas Mexican Mafia members get hefty sentences

Guillermo Contrera, Express-News http://analytics.apnewsregistry.com/...49/E/prod/AT/A
Published 11:35 am, Thursday, April 11, 2013

Members and associates of the Texas Mexican Mafia, including a former general, have been sentenced to lengthy federal prison terms for their roles in the gang's drug-trafficking or racketeering activities.
In Del Rio, Texas Mexican Mafia member Javier Guerrero, 24, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Alia Moses to three consecutive life terms plus 210 months in prison for committing racketeering offenses and assaulting a guard at the GEO Correctional Facility in Val Verde County.
In San Antonio also Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez sentenced former general Robert “Lil Bit” Carreno, 45, to 300 months in prison for conspiring with eight others to distribute 48 kilograms of heroin that made the gang about $750,000. A co-defendant, Guadalupe “Lupio” Ramos, 48, was sentenced to 210 months in prison and six others have already been sent to prison or are awaiting sentencing.
U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman said that, from Dec. 1, 2009, to July 20, 2011, Carreno oversaw the transportation of the heroin from Laredo to San Antonio, for further distribution by the gang's members here.
Guerrero, meanwhile, was a member of the gang's operations stretching from Hondo to Del Rio and Eagle Pass.
Among the racketeering offenses Guerrero was convicted of are the Dec. 6, 2006, murder of Christopher Mendez near Concan and the July 19, 2008 killing of Jose Damian Garza in Hondo.
Guerrero is the last of twelve defendants convicted in the racketeering case to be sentenced.
“(Wednesday's) significant prison sentence of this dangerous individual is a positive step toward ridding our communities of violent street gangs,” said Vincent Iglio, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio. “This sentence sends a strong message that HSI and its law enforcement partners will continue to conduct aggressive enforcement actions against members and their associates to bring them to justice.”
On Oct. 25, 2011, while awaiting sentencing on the racketeering charges, Guerrero hit a jailer in the face with his fists and his knees, cutting the guard's nose. Guerrero pleaded guilty to assaulting a federal officer for that offense.Also involved in the investigations were the FBI, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the San Antonio Police Department, Bexar County District Attorney's Office, and various law enforcement agencies from Hondo to Del Rio.
gcontreras@express-news.net

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