Santa Ana Man Wins Mistrial in 2nd Murder

A 23-year-old Santa Ana man who was acquitted of murder last year and later described by police as one of the most dangerous gang leaders in the city won a mistrial in a second murder case Tuesday.

Despite three eyewitnesses who identified Eleazar Gonzales as the killer, several jurors questioned the strength of the prosecution’s case.

Judge Ronald E. Owen declared the mistrial after the jury announced it was deadlocked 9 to 3 in favor of a guilty verdict.

Gonzales, who remains in custody, will be retried, prosecutors indicated. Owen ordered Gonzales returned to court on April 26 to determine if prosecutors want to set a new trial date.

Gonzales was charged with the April, 1990, fatal shooting of Roger Ochoa, 17, which occurred two months after Gonzales was acquitted in the murder of Juan Picon, 21. Ochoa was slain during a string of bloody weekend gang shootings that left two dead and several youths injured and prompted Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters to launch a gang task force that focused on police sweeps through gang turfs.

Gonzales claims he was arrested in connection with Ochoa’s murder because police were out to get him in retaliation for his acquittal in the Picon slaying.

“They’re trying to frame me again for something I didn’t do,” he said in a jailhouse interview shortly after his arrest.

But prosecutors and police said such an allegation is absurd.

“We prosecuted him for (the second murder) because of the facts of the case,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Randolph J. Pawloski said Tuesday. “And nine jurors didn’t have any trouble understanding those facts.”

Pawloski would not comment on Gonzales’ earlier acquittal. But police officers and other prosecutors have privately speculated that the reason Gonzales got involved in a second violent incident so quickly after his acquittal was because he was convinced he could beat the system.

Santa Ana Police Detective Thomas Serafin had described Gonzales after his second arrest as a hard-core gang member “capable of extreme violence” because of a “hair-trigger temper.”

“I say he is in the Top 5 of those who are dangerous enough to kill,” Serafin had said.

But one of the three holdout jurors said after Tuesday’s mistrial that she believed “the police handed the prosecutors a weak case.”

The juror, a schoolteacher who asked not to be identified, said, “I really don’t believe Eleazar did it.”

She and another juror who voted Gonzales not guilty were surprised to learn about Gonzales’ acquittal in another murder last year. Both of them, however, said that would not have influenced their vote in this case.

They were influenced, they said, by the arguments of Gonzales’ attorney Donald G. Rubright, who was out of town Tuesday and unavailable for comment on the mistrial. Rubright not only told jurors that a third party may have been the actual shooter, he named who he thought it was and offered evidence in attempt to point guilt in that direction.

The schoolteacher said afterward: “I think there is much more reason to believe that (the third party) is the man who pulled the trigger. I don’t know why the police did not pursue that evidence.”

But Walters staunchly defended his investigators in the Gonzales case. He was particularly bothered by comments he heard that those who voted Gonzales not guilty were upset at the way his officers interrogated Gonzales.

“If you are dealing with a hard-core gang member, you don’t sit down and talk to him like an ordinary citizen,” Walters said.

Gonzales was acquitted in February, 1990, in the 1988 shooting death of Picon, a member of his own gang. The victim was shot eight times in the head and once in the chest in an alley near McFadden Avenue and Highland Street.

At his trial, prosecutors presented evidence from two eyewitnesses that Gonzales was the shooter. But one of those witnesses recanted his statement during his testimony, claiming he had been harassed by police into naming Gonzales. And the second witness lacked credibility, jurors said later.

Prosecutors had other evidence in that case--Gonzales had fled to Mexico immediately after the shooting and had been known to use the gun involved in the killing.

But some jurors at that trial said later they were influenced by expert gang testimony presented by defense attorney William Yacobozzi Jr., showing that gang members have a pact not to kill anyone within their own gang.

While awaiting trial in that case, Gonzales and three other inmates escaped from Orange County Jail but Gonzales turned himself in four days later.

On April 20, 1990, less than two months after he was acquitted in the Picon killing, Gonzales and several members of his gang were seen at a neighborhood party where members of a rival gang were also in attendance.

Witnesses said Roger Ochoa argued with Gonzales over which of them belonged to the better gang. Three young eyewitnesses later identified Gonzales as the one who fatally shot Ochoa four times in the back.

But the schoolteacher who voted him not guilty said she was troubled by their testimony. She said she believed that they had been led by the police into identifying Gonzales in a photo lineup.

“I am a supporter of the police, but in this case, the police tactics were appalling,” she said. “I think the three of them got together and agreed who the shooter was after the police talked to them and influenced them.”

Walters said that all interviews in the Gonzales case were conducted properly. Prosecutor Pawloski added that the witnesses were interviewed by officers experienced in gang cases.

“Everything is magnified in a gang case,” he said. “You have witnesses who worry about retaliation; they are nervous and reluctant to help police. These officers aggressively pursued this investigation, which is what you have to do in a gang case.”

The prosecutor added that he does not believe that the police coerced any of the witnesses. He also pointed out that the majority on the jury disagreed with the three holdouts about the eyewitnesses’ credibility.

Lt. Bob Helton of the Santa Ana police gang unit said finding cooperative witnesses in a gang case is extremely difficult.

“Witnesses either tell us they did not see anything or they give totally erroneous information,” he said. “That’s why gang investigations are so time-consuming. It’s frustrating.”

Police said they worked on the Ochoa shooting for eight days before they had sufficient evidence to arrest Gonzales, despite the number of witnesses to the shooting.

Yacobozzi, who defended Gonzales during the first trial and has since befriended him, recalled what he told him after the acquittal.

“I told him . . . that he had to be careful to not even get caught jaywalking, because the police would be watching him,” Yacobozzi said. “I’m convinced he didn’t commit this second murder either. But I’m also sure they’ll retry him for it.”