Accomplice in ’88 Racial Slaying Gets 14 Years

A 20-year-old Rancho Bernardo man was sentenced Friday to 14 years in state prison for his role in furnishing an assault rifle and a truck in the racially motivated slayings of two unarmed Mexican men in Rancho Penasquitos in 1988.

Dennis Bencivenga was sentenced by San Diego Superior Court Judge William Mudd, who also imposed a $5,000 fine to be paid from Bencivenga’s prison earnings.

Mudd is the same judge who sentenced the gunman, Kenneth Kovzelove, 18, of Mira Mesa, to 50 years to life in prison Feb. 13.

Bencivenga pleaded guilty to two counts of voluntary manslaughter April 5; two murder counts were dismissed.

Mudd allowed Bencivenga to be placed in the California Youth Authority until age 25, when he will be transferred to an adult prison.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Dave Stutz told Mudd that Bencivenga went to San Diego police last year to provide information that solved the murders of Hilario Salgado, 22, and Matilde de la Sancha, 19.

“But for Bencivenga, the real, true killer would not have been caught,” said Stutz in court, adding that Kovzelove’s hatred for Mexicans showed that he probably would have killed again had he not been arrested.

“They died because of their race,” said the prosecutor.

Kovzelove told investigators he killed the Mexican migrants because they took away jobs from Americans.

In Bencivenga’s probation report, Bencivenga was quoted as saying that, after Kovzelove, then 17, joined the Army and came home for Christmas, Kovzelove told him, “I want to kill some more Mexicans.”

Bencivenga told police that Kovzelove told him the Nov. 9, 1988, shootings on Black Mountain Road were “fun.”

“Who was he going to do next, me, my friends?” Bencivenga was quoted as telling police, according to the probation report.

“He thought it was a game,” said Bencivenga in the report.

Bencivenga said nothing in court, but submitted a personal letter to the judge before his sentencing.

Stutz said Bencivenga told the judge in the letter that he wants to be a criminal defense attorney after he gets out of prison.

Bencivenga furnished the South Korean assault rifle that Kovzelove used to fire 18 shots at the victims, and he was the driver in the incident.