OXNARD : Man Is Convicted in Fatal Stabbing

A Ventura County Superior Court jury convicted a longtime county maintenance worker of voluntary manslaughter Monday for stabbing another man to death outside an Oxnard bar in June.

Steven Rodriguez, 46, shook his head in apparent disbelief as the verdicts were read in Judge Allan L. Steele’s courtroom.

Rodriguez was originally charged with second-degree murder in the June 18 stabbing of Raymond Caballero, 45, of Oxnard. But the jury convicted the defendant of the lesser charge because the killing occurred during a sudden argument, Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. James D. Ellison said.

Rodriguez faces up to 11 years in state prison for the voluntary manslaughter conviction, Ellison said. He also faces 15 additional years on a special charge that he has been convicted of at least three serious felonies, Ellison said.

A 15-year county employee, Rodriguez was convicted of murder in the early 1970s in Los Angeles County and of shooting at an occupied dwelling in 1987, the prosecutor said.

Ellison told the jury in the Caballero case that Rodriguez and the victim were attending a party at the Casbah Lounge in Oxnard on June 18 when they got into an argument.

Caballero appears to have started the argument, Ellison said. But he said Caballero was driving away from the scene when Rodriguez began striking the victim’s car with a tire iron.

Caballero was stabbed to death after he left the car and used a 2-by-4 to knock the tire iron from Rodriguez’s grip, Ellison said.

Defense attorney James M. Farley has maintained that his client stabbed the victim in self-defense.