2 Gang Members Get Long Prison Terms for Slaying : Violence: They were looking for revenge while cruising the streets of Pacoima. Victim Carmen De la Cruz was a high school senior.

Two Pacoima gang members, one characterized by the judge as a “classic criminal sociopath,” were sentenced Friday to lengthy prison terms for gunning down a 17-year-old Sepulveda girl while cruising Pacoima seeking revenge on a member of a rival gang.

Nicholas Moran Avila, 26, was sentenced in San Fernando Superior Court by Judge John P. Farrell for killing Carmen De la Cruz, a Monroe High School senior.

On Jan. 20, 1989, Avila fired as many as 10 shots into the car in which De la Cruz was riding home with four friends from an excursion to the mountains, prosecutors said. De la Cruz was struck three times in the back. None of the others were injured.

The judge, calling Avila a “classic criminal sociopath,” sentenced him to three consecutive life terms, plus a fourth consecutive term of 30 years to life. That renders him ineligible to be considered for parole for at least 43 years, Deputy Dist. Atty. Ed Nison said.

Martin Mendoza, 19, who drove the car from which Avila fired the shots, was sentenced to 26 years to life, and will probably be eligible for parole in about 17 years, Farrell said.

After a seven-week trial, Avila and Mendoza were convicted of first-degree murder and four counts of attempted first-degree murder by separate San Fernando Superior Court juries that returned verdicts within 15 minutes of each other.

During the trial, prosecutors said that Avila, Mendoza and Adolfo Caldero, 18, also of Pacoima, had gone looking for members of a rival gang who had attacked a younger member of their own gang earlier that day.

While driving around Pacoima, they pulled up next to the car in which De la Cruz and her friends were riding, Nison said. The driver of the car carrying De la Cruz flashed a gang signal at the men, and then Avila fired into the car with an assault rifle, trial evidence showed.

“In his sociopathic mind, he viewed himself as the lead man for enforcing the gang’s code of honor,” Farrell said of Avila, whom prosecutors described as a hard-core gang member with a long criminal record. When Avila was arrested for the murder, he led police on a chase from Burbank to Santa Barbara at speeds exceeding 100 m.p.h., prosecutors said.

Letters presented to the judge at sentencing praised Mendoza, however, as a hard-working, caring individual who was not very active in the gang and was trying to better himself.

Farrell said he imposed a lighter sentence on Mendoza because he believed the youth was “salvageable.” However, he berated Mendoza for his involvement with the gang, saying his association led him to adopt “the morality of the lowest common denominator.”

Caldero is awaiting trial.