VENTURA : Former Athlete to Be Sentenced in Killing

A former Ventura High School track star who fatally stabbed an Oxnard youth is scheduled for sentencing today by a judge who called this “as serious a case as you can get.”

Superior Court Judge James M. McNally can either send Jesse Conchas, 18, to the California Youth Authority until he turns 25 or sentence him to prison for 16 years to life.

If McNally opts for the prison sentence, Conchas will spend the first seven years in a CYA facility, then will be transferred to a prison.

Conchas pleaded guilty in October to second-degree murder and use of a deadly weapon in the stabbing of Jose Lopez Navarro, 16, on May 3, 1992, in Ventura’s Camino Real Park. According to court records, the stabbing occurred after Conchas and some friends confronted a group of youths they believed had smashed the windows in Conchas’ car several days earlier. Navarro was trying to run from Conchas when he was stabbed in the back of the neck, court documents state.

“The victim did everything he could to avoid a confrontation that night,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Holmes told McNally on Friday in arguing for a prison sentence for Conchas. “The defendant is the total instigator of violence on this occasion.”

Defense attorney James M. Farley, in his arguments to the judge Friday, said Conchas is “a person who committed a horrible crime, but he is a young person and he is salvageable.”

Conchas was a B-plus student and varsity runner at Ventura High whose work recruiting members in Ventura County Youth for Christ helped land his picture on the cover of a Christian brochure.

However, Conchas also hung out with the Ventura Avenue Gangsters and had numerous contacts with police, according to witnesses and court documents.