Judge Gives Man Life in Prison for Killing Father of 4

A Santa Ana gang member was sentenced Friday to life in prison without parole for shooting a father of four to death during a 1994 robbery.

Jesus Isreal Lara, 21, glanced back at his weeping family after Superior Court Judge Robert R. Fitzgerald handed down the sentence while calling Lara’s crimes “despicable.” Referring to him by his gang name of “Sharkey,” the judge told Lara he would be in prison “for the rest of your natural life.”

A leader in Santa Ana’s notorious Sixth Street gang, Lara shot 27-year-old Juan Granados to death in a darkened Santa Ana alley as the victim pleaded for his life.

Lara and his two cousins had run out of gas in the middle of the night and pushed their truck into the alley.

The three turned over their money, but Granados and one of his cousins, Enrique Granados, were shot anyway. Enrique Granados survived, and the third cousin ran to safety unharmed.

Prosecutors characterized Lara as a “calloused and hardened” individual who showed no remorse for his crimes.

Lara had boasted of committing the crime to a police informant who was working an undercover operation aimed at breaking up the gang, suspected of robbing illegal immigrants and committing numerous violent crimes. The gang was the target of a major gang sweep in 1994 called Operation Roundup that resulted in more than 100 arrests.

Lara was participating in a drug deal with the informant and was unaware that he was being videotaped when he made the admission. He later led the informant to the alley where the shooting occurred, according to a pre-sentencing report.

The victim, Granados, was a Mexican immigrant who had dreamed of earning enough money to help his young children, whose mother had died of an illness four years earlier.

“That man devastated our family and left four children without a father,” Granados’ cousin, Jesus Ramirez, wrote in a statement to the court.

Ramirez was with his cousin the night of the robbery and escaped injury.

Enrique Granados, who was wounded during the robbery, identified Lara as the triggerman. He was killed in auto accident in March and did not get to testify.

Outside court Friday, defense attorney George Peters called the case “difficult” and said there are serious questions bout Lara’s involvement in the crime.

Witnesses said a second gang member acted as a lookout during the robbery, but he was never identified.

Peters said it is possible that the second gang member actually pulled the trigger.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Randy Pawlowski, who prosecuted the crime, said: “There is evidence that he was the shooter from his own mouth.”

Pawlowski called the sentencing “the culmination of a successful investigation and prosecution of the Sixth Street gang. This should send a message that if you commit a crime and you are a gang member, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Lara’s family, including his parents and three sisters, sat in the hallway sobbing after the brief sentencing hearing.

“We know he didn’t do it,” his sister, Patti Perez, said. “The murder charges aren’t true. He’s just afraid of saying the truth.”

Lara’s first trial ended in July in a mistrial with the jury deadlocked at 10 to 2 in favor of conviction. He was eventually convicted in September of first-degree murder, in addition to several other felony charges, including attempted murder, robbery and street terrorism.