In a verdict bringing a years-long legal drama to its conclusion, Omar Meza, a 31-year-old suspected gang member, has been sentenced to spend the remainder of his life behind bars without parole, the San Mateo Co DA's office announced. A jury had found Meza guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances, including a firearm enhancement, marking his third strike under the state's laws.
Omar Meza (31) sentenced to life without the possibility of parole following his conviction by a jury in November of last year for first degree murder with special circumstances including a firearm enhancement, a 3rd strike case. pic.twitter.com/epKdNYqzSr
— San Mateo County District Attorney (@SanMateoCoDA) January 24, 2024
Meza's conviction stems from a cold-blooded incident dating back to 2018, in which Luis Alberto Diaz-Lopez was fatally shot and robbed. The trial revealed that Meza had conspired to commit a burglary with Diaz-Lopez and a female accomplice, only to betray and murder Diaz-Lopez in a dirt parking lot off Highway 1. It was after a two-year investigation that Meza was nabbed in April 2020, his hands already dirtied from a prior federal firearm charge that had confined him to federal prison.
Jurors slogged through nearly a month of trial before handing down a guilty verdict for first-degree murder and related enhancements. However, they couldn't unanimously decide on whether the murder was committed specifically to carry out a robbery. This unresolved piece, however, did little to avert Meza's harsh sentence. The woman involved in the case was not charged, as the prosecutor, Tricia Povah, disclosed that she "thought that (robbing) Diaz-Lopez was sort of the plan and that they might be doing some other criminal activities but there's no evidence to suggest that she had any idea that the defendant was going to kill him,” as Povah related to the Mercury News.
CORRECTION: The story had a typo that identified Meza as a former DA, as opposed to a former gang member.
