Mendiolas No Strangers to Strife

When deputies arrived at dawn last Tuesday at the Lake Forest home of Giovanni Mendiola to arrest him in connection with the killing of an Idaho drug dealer, they had more than just the suspect to contend with.

Aunt Maria Lombardo, 57, was led away in handcuffs after she allegedly kicked one deputy. Sister Gigliola Garcia, 30, was also booked on charges of trying to interfere with an officer.

“Apparently they’re a high-strung family,” said Orange County Sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino.

It isn’t the first time that members of the close-knit Mendiola clan have been in trouble with authorities: They have had run-ins with the law in incidents ranging from spousal abuse to possession of stolen property.

Now three sons, including Giovanni, are behind bars. Charges against Giovanni include murder, robbery and kidnapping. His brothers face charges of robbery, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder.

The family is also known for aggressive behavior at basketball games while rooting for two of its youngest members -- Giuliana and Gioconda Mendiola. The Orange County prep stars are on the University of Washington’s basketball team -- where Giuliana earned 2002-03 Pacific 10 player-of-the-year honors.

The Mendiolas are well known in Lake Forest and neighboring towns. Some saw them as an intimidating, even menacing force, while others viewed them more as a boisterous clan whose aggressive and sometimes boorish behavior stood out in the staid community, particularly at high school basketball games.

In the late 1990s, while the girls were at El Toro High School, officials instituted a policy informally known as “the Mendiola Rule” to force fiercely devoted -- and often disruptive -- relatives and friends to behave.

“Generally, there are not huge crowds at girls’ basketball games, so their tactics and antics were more pronounced,” said Sheri Ross, girls’ athletic director at the Lake Forest school. “They stood out, inappropriately so. I feel badly for the girls. They were excellent athletes and excellent students.”

Parents Edgardo and Alicia Mendiola, immigrants from Peru who met in New York City, were successful youth-sports figures and wanted the same for their nine children, the family told The Times in 2000.

Alicia and three of her sisters played basketball for Lima in Peruvian national championships. Edgardo was a semipro soccer player. They moved to Southern California, where the older children tackled soccer. The younger ones went for their mother’s first love, basketball, and even vied for her old number -- 13. Giuliana won; Gioconda had to settle for its mirror image -- 31.

All of the kids played rough-and-tumble soccer and basketball nonstop, brothers and sisters alike.

Giuliana and Gioconda joked about the bruises and cuts they’ve inflicted on each other.

That rowdy family atmosphere carried over at the games. As many as 30 relatives and friends would show up at games, loudly cheering, cursing, holding up giant signs, and taunting players and referees.

Mary Mulligan, San Clemente girls’ basketball coach, said the Mendiola brothers’ tactics could be very intimidating, especially to opposing teams.

“They liked to sit behind the opponents’ bench and razz the players and coaches,” Mulligan said. “They had a tendency to pick on two or three kids by name and harass them. That made it personal, and it affected the kids.”

During a four-day tournament at San Clemente in the late 1990s, Mulligan said, the Mendiola brothers created such a stir that they were barred from sitting behind the opposing team for the last two games.

In December 1998, El Toro athletic director Ross pulled the girls’ team out of a tournament after a series of fan-related incidents at another tournament in Santa Barbara.

El Toro supporters allegedly attacked a 15-year-old boy who supported another team. Though it was unclear who attacked the teen, one of the Mendiolas caused a scene by shouting and coming to the edge of the court during the game.

“I saw the game, the animosity that was being created, and I guess it spilled over,” said Mulligan, the San Clemente coach. “I saw the kid that was beaten up.”

The Monday after the game, Ross instituted the Mendiola Rule. Only applause, cheering and positive remarks would be tolerated from the crowd, and no trouble was reported the following year.

While the girls and their brother Fabrizio were excelling on Orange County basketball courts, some of their older brothers were running afoul of the law.

Eddie pleaded guilty to spousal abuse in 1998, then wrote a bad check for court costs, court record show. He pleaded guilty in 2000 to possession of steroids and driving on a suspended license and was sentenced to two years in prison. Giovanni pleaded guilty to possession of stolen property in 1997.

Neighbors said there were often raucous all-night parties at the large, two-story brown house.

Giocanda waited a year for her younger sister to graduate so the two could attend the University of Washington, both on basketball scholarships.

Older brother Giovanni promptly moved to Seattle with them.

While there, he and two of his brothers got into their most serious trouble yet.

While pieces of the story are still missing, indictments unsealed this week allege that Giovanni met with Brendan Butler, a drug dealer who wanted help quashing some competitors in Idaho.

Giovanni, Eddie and Pierro Mendiola formed a “crew” with two other Orange County friends, and traveled to Idaho in June to rob, intimidate and even murder the competitors if necessary, authorities allege.

In October, the crew returned to Idaho with one more member. They had a fight with Butler, and he ended up dead, his body dumped on a national forest road near a remote campground.

Tipped off by records of Butler’s last cell phone call, to the Mendiolas’ Seattle apartment, detectives from Idaho and Orange County questioned the family. Last Tuesday, deputies moved in to make arrests.

Eddie Mendiola was at an in-law’s house in Mission Viejo. Pierro Mendiola was on his way to work. Giovanni was at his family’s home in Lake Forest. The girls were also home on spring break.

Authorities note that the two girls were questioned but quickly dismissed as suspects.

“There is nothing anywhere that says these are bad girls,” said Dan Mattos, the Kootenai County, Idaho homicide sergeant who oversaw the case.

“They are very popular in Seattle, and ... I don’t want to see them to get hurt over this, over something that they didn’t do.”

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Staff writer Martin Henderson contributed to this report.