Triggerman Gets Lighter Sentence Than Accomplice

Prosecutor Cesar C. Sarmiento said he wonders if a sentence imposed Wednesday on a North Hollywood man convicted of murder will send the wrong message to gang members.

San Fernando Superior Court Commissioner Irwin H. Garfinkel sentenced Juan Peralta, 24, to 17 years to life for fatally shooting rival gang member Jose Venegas Jr., 15, in Hansen Dam Park on July 4, 1985.

Peralta’s accomplice, Juan Antonio Zuniga, 21, was sentenced in 1986 to 26 years to life. He had driven to the park, but did not fire on Venegas.

“Does this mean all gang-bangers will want to be the shooter and not the driver because they’ll think they’ll get off easier?” asked Sarmiento, who is assigned to the gang-prosecution division of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. “I’m being facetious, but that might be the way it goes over on the street.”

Peralta’s attorney, Paul Dolan of Westlake Village, views the verdict differently.

“The sentence is too heavy, not too light,” Dolan said. “My client should have been found not guilty.”

Witnesses at trials for both Peralta and Zuniga testified that Venegas was with friends observing a Fourth of July car show at the park when Zuniga and Peralta drove up and exchanged taunts with the group. Both men got out of the car and approached Venegas, the witnesses said.

Peralta shot Venegas once in the left arm while Zuniga blocked the boy’s escape, the witnesses said. The boy fell to the ground and Peralta shot him twice in the back at close range, they testified.

Zuniga may do more time in prison than Peralta because Zuniga was convicted by a jury Dec. 27, 1985, of first-degree murder, a deliberate and premeditated act, prosecutors said. A jury decided Feb. 4 that Peralta was guilty of second-degree murder, which does not require premeditation and carries a lighter sentence, prosecutors said.

“It’s crazy,” Sarmiento said. “Both juries heard essentially the same facts, but saw it differently.”

Sarmiento said the fact that Peralta was not brought to trial until February, while Zuniga was convicted nearly six months after the crime, may have had something to do with the different sentences. According to a probation report, Peralta fled to Mexico after the shooting. Zuniga was arrested July 5, 1985.

Peralta was arrested April 29, 1987, when police stopped an unregistered vehicle in North Hollywood and one of the officers recognized him.