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PANORAMA CITY : 2 Gang Members Convicted of Murder

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Two Panorama City gang members were convicted of murder Friday in a retaliation killing outside a North Hills doughnut shop.

Two separate juries in Van Nuys Superior Court delivered verdicts in the seven-week cases against Jose Santos Nunez Martinez, 22, and Jorge Luis de la Riva, 20.

Police solved the shooting of Miguel Cacares only after Martinez wrote a letter about the slaying to a fellow gang member and the correspondence was intercepted by state prison officials.

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Martinez, who wrote in the letter that he instructed the gunman “not to shoot til they got closer,” was convicted of second-degree murder.

Martinez faces a sentence of 23 years to life in state prison, to be set at a Sept. 10 hearing.

De la Riva was convicted of first-degree murder for being the gunman who shot Cacares with a sawed-off .22-caliber rifle. He faces a prison term of 36 years to life.

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Martinez wrote in his three-page handwritten letter that a rival gang had chased some members of his gang, so a group went out looking for revenge on March 29, 1992.

Martinez and De la Riva found their target in the parking lot of a mini-mall at the intersection of Roscoe and Sepulveda boulevards in North Hills, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Franco Baratta.

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