VENTURA : Man Pleads to Lesser Charge in Slaying

In exchange for prosecutors’ agreement to drop a murder charge, an 18-year-old Ventura man has pleaded guilty to assault in the slaying of a teen-ager during last year’s Fiesta Days celebration in Santa Barbara.

Benny Huerta, who is being held in Santa Barbara County Jail, pleaded to the lesser charge before Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge James Slater on Wednesday, said Santa Barbara Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Zonen.

When he is sentenced Feb. 26, Huerta faces a maximum seven-year prison term--four years for assault and three years for being an admitted gang member. For a murder conviction, Huerta could have been sentenced to as much as life in prison, Zonen said.

Two other Ventura men, Gregory Dominguez, 19, and Ricardo Cervantes, 20, who are also being held at the jail, still face murder charges in the stabbing, which claimed the life of Robert Mitchum, 16, on Aug. 5.

Zonen said he agreed to the lesser charge for Huerta because witnesses’ testimony to the Santa Barbara County grand jury indicated that the youth did not inflict the fatal wound. “It more closely reflects his involvement” to charge him with assault, Zonen said.

Police have said that Huerta, Dominguez, Cervantes and two Ventura juveniles attacked Mitchum as he walked with his 14-year-old brother and another youth on State Street on the crowded opening night of Fiesta Days.

After exchanging gang slogans, the suspects knocked Mitchum to the ground, punched him and stabbed him five times, inflicting one fatal chest wound and four superficial wounds on the victim’s back and arms, Zonen said.

Zonen said witnesses testified that Dominguez inflicted the fatal chest wound.