Racketeering Indictments Name 40 as Mexican Mafia Suspects

Federal authorities unsealed racketeering indictments Thursday against 40 suspected members of the Mexican Mafia, including a Los Angeles public school teacher and the wife of the gang’s reputed leader.

Most of those named have been behind bars awaiting trial under earlier indictments.

Among those newly indicted was Margaret Cheryl Farrell, 50, of Reseda. She teaches English to immigrant children at the Foshay Learning Center, a highly regarded experimental school in South Los Angeles.

Also arrested Thursday was Sally Peters, 45, of Santa Ana, wife of reputed Mexican Mafia leader Benjamin Peters, also known as Topo, who is serving a life prison term.

The two women were among seven people taken into custody as 130 federal and local law officers fanned out across Southern California seeking 16 new suspects.

Farrell is accused of relaying messages between Mexican Mafia members inside California prisons and associates in the Los Angeles area. One of those messages named three people targeted by the gang’s leaders for reprisal attacks, according to the indictment.

Farrell, who has worked at the Foshay school since 1986, was known to have stayed in touch with former students who wound up in prison, said a school district official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“She cares about these kids,” the official said. “The trouble with her is that she is a gentle, kind and caring human being--to a fault. I can’t believe she was knowingly involved with illegal activities.”

Like Farrell, Sally Peters is accused of relaying messages between Mexican Mafia members in prison and their associates on the outside. She allegedly carried messages from Pelican Bay State Prison, housing the most hard-core convicts in California.

Peters also is accused of dispensing money made from the Mexican Mafia’s sale of drugs inside California prisons.

The indictments portray an organization that operates from behind prison bars, seeks to control the distribution of illegal drugs in Latino communities, demands tribute from Latino street gangs and drug traffickers and metes out corporal punishment to those who disobey its orders.

If a street gang fails to pay its taxes, the leadership issues a “green light,” authorizing Mexican Mafia associates or rival street gang members to assault or murder the recalcitrant gang members, according to the indictments.

One street gang targeted in this way was the Pacoima Project Boyz. The indictments quoted a defendant as saying he would “bring them to their knees” for refusing to pay their dues to the Mexican Mafia.

The decision to green light the Pacoima Project Boyz reprisal was relayed to members of the Langdon Street, Trece, Criminals, Southside and San Fers gangs, according the indictment, and to Mexican Mafia members inside the Los Angeles County Jail system.

At least one member of the Pacoima Project Boyz was slain, allegedly as a result of the edict.

The new indictments cite a total of six murders, four attempted murders, 14 conspiracies to commit murder and numerous conspiracies to distribute narcotics inside the prison system and on the streets.

They supersede indictments returned by a Los Angeles grand jury in January alleging violations of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Practices Act, commonly known as RICO. They are the product of a 2 1/2-year investigation by a law enforcement task force that includes the FBI, Los Angeles police, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officers, the California Department of Corrections and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The defendants are scheduled to go to trial next year. Twelve face a possible death sentence if convicted of involvement in murders.

The last major case against the Mexican Mafia, also known as La Eme, occurred in 1997, when 22 suspected members and leaders were indicted. Eight pleaded guilty and one was murdered before he could be arrested. Twelve of the 13 defendants brought to trial were convicted and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. One defendant, Victor Murillo, was acquitted but was later slain in Visalia. One of Murillo’s alleged killers was named in the indictments unsealed Thursday. He is Eddie Joe Annett, 27, and has been in state custody.

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Times staff writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this story.