Youth Is Sentenced in Slaying of Teen

A 17-year-old Oxnard youth was sentenced to 29 years to life in prison this week for fatally shooting another teenager.

Albert Madueno, who bragged to gang members about committing the drive-by shooting, will serve the first year of his sentence at a facility for juveniles.

He is among the county’s youngest convicted killers.

Madueno was convicted of first-degree murder for fatally shooting 14-year-old Ralph Rico Jr. in the chest May 20, 1996.

During his trial, Madueno took the witness stand in his own defense and told jurors that he did not kill the boy.

Ralph was gunned down before midnight while standing on the steps of his aunt’s home in the South Winds neighborhood of Oxnard--a community that has since vowed to wipe out festering gang problems.

The crime-plagued neighborhood has been an area of heightened concern for law enforcement, city and county officials, as well as the focus of a new $4.5-million anti-gang program.

Relatives of the slain boy said he was trying to avoid a gang lifestyle, and had been in and out of the juvenile court system.

Madueno testified at a fitness hearing in juvenile court last November that he took credit for the slaying because he wanted to impress older gang members. He denied taking part in the killing, however.