A federal judge sentenced three Orange County street gang members to life in prison Thursday for gunning down a man in 2017 on orders from an imprisoned Mexican Mafia leader who accused him of shorting drug proceeds. Mike Escobar, James Mendez and Kevin Trejo were convicted of murdering 28-year-old Richard Villeda, who was shot seven times in the back and once in the head shortly before midnight on August 21, 2017, in the 800 block of East Culver Avenue in Orange.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the three men lured Villeda to a residential Orange neighborhood before killing him. Villeda, identified in court records as a member of a Costa Mesa street gang, was trafficking drugs and collecting taxes from other Orange County gangs on behalf of a Mexican Mafia leader, prosecutors said. Federal prosecutors established at trial that the order came from reputed Mexican Mafia boss Johnny Martinez, who authorized the killing because Villeda had twice failed to hand over required drug proceeds, coming up several thousand dollars short, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.
Escobar, 43, known by the moniker Risky and a member of the Little Hood gang in Anaheim, Mendez, 47, who goes by Buck and belongs to a Sureño gang in Garden Grove, and Trejo, 38, known as Minor and a member of the Jeffrey Street gang in Anaheim, were all convicted of murder in aid of racketeering, according to the Department of Justice. Martinez, known as Crow and now 50, was incarcerated at the time of the killing and allegedly issued the execution order using a contraband cellphone from inside Salinas Valley State Prison in Monterey County, according to an account of the case published by Frontpage Detectives.
Life Sentences Under Federal Racketeering Law
Escobar, Mendez and Trejo were prosecuted and sentenced under the federal Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering statute, 18 U.S.C. Section 1959, which mandates life imprisonment upon conviction for racketeering-related murder, per the Department of Justice. That legal mechanism let federal prosecutors take over a local Orange homicide case because it was tied to an organized crime enterprise, rather than leaving it to state courts. Assistant U.S. Attorney A. Tysen Duva said the case charged both the shooters and the person who ordered the murder, adding that gang members directing killings from behind bars will be charged and prosecuted just like those who pull the triggers, per the Department of Justice.
The Mexican Mafia, also known as La Eme, is a U.S.-based prison gang that exerts significant influence over Hispanic street gangs throughout Southern California, according to the Department of Justice. Mexican Mafia leaders collect profits from drug trafficking, illegal gambling and other crimes, and they order associates to carry out illegal activities from behind bars, the agency said. Martinez allegedly assumed power over Orange County gang operations following a violent jailhouse power struggle that erupted after federal prosecutors convicted previous boss Peter Ojeda, who had controlled local Hispanic street gangs for decades before he died in federal prison in 2018 while serving a 15-year sentence, according to MyNewsLA.
Daughter's Testimony and Sealed Statements
During the sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Fred W. Slaughter heard tearful impact testimony from Villeda's daughter, who was 10 years old when her father was killed, per MyNewsLA's account. Defense attorneys unsuccessfully challenged the court's decision to seal victim impact statements, a measure taken to protect family members who voiced intense fears of retaliation from remaining gang associates, the outlet reported.
As reported by NBC Los Angeles, Martinez, the alleged mastermind behind the murder, is scheduled to face his own trial in August 2027. The Justice Department's Criminal Division said it will maintain its commitment to eradicating gangs at all levels to make America safer.
Part of a Wider Federal Crackdown
The convictions trace back to Operation Night Owl, an April 2022 federal grand jury indictment that charged 31 Mexican Mafia leaders and associates across Orange County, according to MyNewsLA's reporting. The October 2023 trial that led to this week's sentencing was the first to arise from that sweeping indictment. The Department of Justice said the investigation was conducted jointly by the FBI's Los Angeles Field Office, police departments from Orange, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Fullerton and Placentia, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, while the conviction and sentencing were made possible specifically by collaboration among the Orange, Santa Ana and Placentia police departments and the Orange County District Attorney's Office.
The Department of Justice framed the life sentences as part of an ongoing Homeland Security Task Force Initiative aimed at curbing prison-directed violence in Southern California, reflecting a broader federal push to target the communication channels between state prisons and street gangs. The same 2022 indictment has already produced other convictions, including a Santa Ana associate's 2024 conviction for a brutal 2019 razor attack on a fellow inmate at Orange County's Theo Lacy Facility, whose victim had allegedly threatened to cooperate with law enforcement.
