GARDEN GROVE : Man Convicted in Gang-Related Killing

A jury found a 24-year-old Stanton man guilty Monday of conspiracy to commit murder in a gang-related, drive-by shooting of a young man in a Garden Grove telephone booth last year.

In a Santa Ana courtroom, the jurors acquitted Joseph David Kehler of murder, but conspiracy to commit murder carries the same penalty of 25 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors said Kehler was the driver and provided the gun used in the shooting. Two other men, Rene Rodriguez of Stanton and Mario Pena, a 16-year-old alleged to be a member of Rodriguez’s gang, have already been convicted of murder in the case.

Witnesses said a bitter feud between a Garden Grove and Stanton gang escalated when Pena and a man associated with the Garden Grove gang exchanged threats in a telephone conversation five days before the April 30, 1990 shooting.

Rosendo Ibarra, allegedly associated with the Garden Grove gang, was shot three times about 11:15 p.m. that night as he was about to make a telephone call in a booth on the 9300 block of Katella Avenue. Afterward, Ibarra’s name was crossed off graffiti at a local park.

One witness said Kehler drove by the scene of the shooting once and then turned around and came back. After the shooting, one witness said either Rodriguez or Pena yelled out to Kehler, “Don’t take us back to the barrio. That’s the first place the cops will look.”

In a letter Kehler wrote to the court in an effort to retrieve his car, which had been sealed as evidence, he stated: “It was my own stupidity that got me into this problem.”

The jury, which deliberated most of last week and part of Monday, also found Kehler guilty of being an accessory after the fact.