Defense attorneys lost a motion to dismiss the case, based on a claim that the government was responsible for murder and assault because it essentially ran Nuestra Familia activities through its informant Daniel Hernandez, who commanded the gang's street operations outside of prison. The 17 indictmentstarget several facets of the Nuestra Familia gang and represent the most significant law enforcement action to disrupt the NF organization in decades, Hinds said. A locked padlock Staff writer Nate Gartrell contributed to this report. Todays operation strikes a substantial blow to Nuestra Familia leadership. He has to in order to maintain credibility.". A check of her cell phone showed gang indicia, the report said, referring to photos of gang members. Thirteen of the defendants plead guilty; the other cases are still ongoing. The problem is that to break gangs and organized crime, inside information is needed, but such groups and especially street gangs are extremely difficult for undercover police to infiltrate. Thirteen defendants have pleaded guilty. [20] The remaining leadership of the organization in Pelican Bay consists of Daniel "Stork" Perez, Anthony "Chuco" Guillen and George "Puppet" Franco. She previously covered D.C. politics and California lawsuits for McClatchy's publications, including the Sacramento Bee, as a national real-time reporter. A lot of the street violence in the past 10 years in Salinas and Watsonville and San Jose stems from this, and in the prison yards too.. Then, in May, his Salinas street crew entered a bar and shot and killed an enemy they believed was moving in on their heroin-dealing turf. Hernandez, as street liaison commander, previously had given a "no-bloodshed" order, and, according to the transcript, he tried to calm the situation, although he was ambiguous in playing both of his roles -- informant and gang leader. But San Francisco attorney Marc Zilversmit contends the government's own legal filings reveal a federal role in the brutal prison-based gang, and raise troubling questions about how far the FBI can take an undercover operation. FBI informant Daniel Her- nandez at a Nuestra Familia gang meeting in Rohnert Park. All seven members of the NFs General Council led the NF organization while incarcerated in the California prison system. Main Office: The leadership vacuum resulted in a power struggle between prospective generals. Operation Black Widow Federal law enforcement agencies, long unable to infiltrate Nuestra Familia, began to step up their investigations in the late 1990s. According to the U.S. Attorneys Office, 36 of the defendants named in the indictments were already in state prison and have been moved to federal holding facilities. 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. After serving NF for 20 years Viramontes had paroled, for good. After months of investigation, at least 37 alleged gang members were arrested during the raids conducted. She was served with an arrest warrant in the federal case against her on Thursday, officials said. Some law enforcement agents speculate that the Nuestra Familia gang, which operates in and out of prisons, influences much of the criminal activity of thousands of Norteo gang members in California. In scale and ambition, the operation dwarfs the two largest cases against the Nuestra Familia: Operation Black Widow ended in 2005, and Operation Valley Star led to a massive trial. Ramirez pled guilty for conspiring to murder Raymond Sanchez, and told Salinas police that the FBI's informant allowed the hit. But police and the FBI, wanting to build their case, did not arrest the gang members for conspiracy to commit murder. Huerta is known among gang members as the wife of Joseph Pinky Hernandez, one the Nuestra Familias top leaders serving a life sentence in a Colorado supermax prison. A spokesman for Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., chair of a House committee currently investigating the FBI's use of criminals as informants, says the FBI is now "in the process of doing a complete review of the way they handle informants.". 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. "Start whacking these fools," one gang member exhorted in one such discussion. Secure .gov websites use HTTPS She is a graduate of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and worked on ProPublicas Electionland project during the 2016 presidential election. The investigation into the outfit, which had been going on since 1997, got a break in December 2000, when Daniel "Lizard" Hernandez facing life in prison for charges that included murder plots in the course of a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) enterprise contacted the Special Services Unit of the California Department of Corrections to talk about becoming an informer. Dec. 9, 2002 -- The FBI didn't just infiltrate the notorious Nuestra Familia prison gang, it allowed an informant to continue the group's violent and criminal activities for seven months, pulling off drug and gun deals and the killing of a rival gang leader, a defense attorney for one of the men accused in the case alleges in a court filing. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Chronicle Graphic, 'Zero visibility' conditions: All roads to Tahoe are closed, One of the largest movie theaters in SF to close permanently, Report: Matthew McConaughey has a massive Salesforce paycheck, 'Really cool sight': Rare waterspout forms in Northern California, A different horse': Bay Area will likely continue to see rain, My meal at this landmark SF spot was too expensive to be so bad, Man shot dead near San Francisco Ferry Building, 'Lady in the fridge' murder victim ID'd as Bay Area mother of 3, Buster Posey has weak answer on Giants owner's politics, These East Bay gems are a haven for music lovers, Snow shuts down over 70 miles of I-80 in Northern California, 'Life threatening': Tahoe braces for massive blizzard, 10 beach essentials to pack for a spring break vacation, You can still overpack the smaller Monos check-in suitcase. The defendants charged in the alleged racketeering conspiracy include the following: 18 U.S.C. 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. In the Black Widow investigation, more than 20 gang members or associates have become informants or have agreed to testify against others in the case. 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 . [22], 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. This is a carousel. Local authorities hope the arrests will cripple the gangs grip on younger gang members in the area and make existing gang-violence intervention efforts, such as Ceasefire, more effective. It was not immediately disclosed how many of the 19 remaining defendants were arrested in the law-enforcement sweeps this week. Law enforcement authorities seized 40 pounds of cocaine, 14 pounds of marijuana, and dozens of firearms. Northern District of California On Nov. 30, 2001, FBI agents overseeing Hernandez wrote in one of their final reports: "Source (Hernandez) participated in unauthorized criminal activity while under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But officials say it soon expanded outside, and over the last three-and-a-half decades has carried out hundreds of murders and thousands of robberies, staking its claim to its turf with intimidation and violence. The message that we are continuing to put out there is that if you think you are going to try and fill the vacuum (left by the arrests), if you are going to choose to move with the gangs and commit gang crimes, then youre going to pay a price. 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 prisonin Colorado. The gang has been around since 1965, according to federal prosecutors, started inside Soledad prison to protect Hispanic inmates. 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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. In the aftermath of Operation Black Widow, the five highest ranking leaders of Nuestra Familia were transferred to a federal supermaximum prison in Florence, Colorado. These seven individuals for years led a violent and lucrative criminal organization from their prison cells. This investigation and prosecution are part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF), which identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks. 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. "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. The FBI has declined to issue any comment on the Black Widow investigation. Operation Knockout: Gang raid targets Nuestra, Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), CIF State boys basketball playoffs: Monterey rallies for win over Kingsburg, Operation Knockout: Gang raid targets Nuestra Familia in Salinas, Avalanche engulfs two stories of Tahoe apartment building; evacuations are ordered, Nursing school admission can be a long wait in California. The indictment is the product of a three-year investigation called "Operation Black Widow" that involved the FBI, U.S. According to the transcripts, the group discussed the purchase of black ski masks, gloves and walkie-talkies to be used for the hits, and even the type of bullets to be fired. Eventually, three new generals came to power at Pelican Bay, yet two were demoted, . Huerta, too, has been under the lens of law enforcement for nearly a decade. [20] Operation Knockout FBI informant Daniel Her- nandez at a Nuestra Familia gang meeting in Rohnert Park. FBI records indicate that he failed to record or report on phone calls with gang members and he disappeared without telling his handlers. That case, as well as revelations about how a mob informant, James "Whitey" Bulger, was protected by some agents while he was on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list, led the Justice Department to set new guidelines for their agents in the handling of informants in January 2001. The investigation is the first time law enforcement has attempted to bring in such large numbers of Nuestra Familia associates from one geographic area, and the hope is this will virtually shut down the gangs business in Salinas long enough for other anti-violence strategies to take hold. He is duplicitous by nature. The California Department of Corrections says Nuestra Familia controls street gangs from Bakersfield to the Oregon border. It is clear they have hard and fast rules, and those who run afoul are met with intimidation and violence that spills into our communities, said DEA Special Agent in Charge Wade R. Shannon. Ybarra recorded the anger of gang members while law enforcement agents listened in. The deputies who arrested her were apparently unaware of the federal charges. 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. Summer Lin covers breaking news and general assignment for The Mercury News. As outlined in the indictment, membership in the NF involved a process of sponsorship, approval, and indoctrination. Nuestra Familia (Spanish for "our family") is a criminal organization of Mexican American . And John Boxer Mendoza wasn't some minor player, he was right up there under the top generals in the gang, working for them and implementing Nuestra Family policy. Read more about this topic: Nuestra Familia, It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding. Operation Black Widow Federal law enforcement agencies, long unable to infiltrate the group, began to step up their investigations in the late 1990s. Experts say the new guidelines were designed to provide outside checks and balances for the FBI without hindering agents' ability to do their jobs. 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. Some in law enforcement believe that, while fighting Nuestra Familia was worthwhile, younger members will soon rise to take leadership. The Monterey County District Attorneys office has since charged her with felony resisting arrest and she remains in the jail in Salinas. Lewis Katz, the John C. Hutchins professor of law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said that law enforcement allowing an informant to occupy a position of authority in a criminal organization would raise ethical, if not legal, questions about the handling of an investigation. But now, police said they are prepared to respond with tactics developed as part of Operation Ceasefire. 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. 1943), The report reflects incredibly terrible judgments, shockingly sparse concern for human life, instances of officials lacking the courage to exercise the responsibilities of their high office and some very bewildering thought processes.Jane Jarrell Smith, U.S. widow of American astronaut Michael J. Smith. [8] Renewed organization The gangs targeted in this operation are responsible for much of the illicit drug distribution and violent crime that has plagued areas in the South Bay, Salinas and the Central Valley for years, Fair said. "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. For links to documents cited in this story, go to the Center for Investigative Reporting website. Her attorney Jeremy Dzubay said its up to District Attorney Dean Flippo to decide whether her local case must be tried before Huerta is taken into federal custody. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. 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. [14] While members of the Norteos gang are considered to be foot soldiers of Nuestra Familia, being a member of Nuestra Familia itself does not signify association as a Norteo. It gives me hope that we can address something as complex as gang violence, he said. Also charged in the indictment are defendants who allegedly participated in two conspiracies to possess and distribute methamphetamine, one in May of 2019 and the other in September 2020 to March 2021. 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11.04.2023