Gang Member Pleads Not Guilty in Killing

A 21-year-old Santa Paula gang member pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of murder, attempted robbery and burglary in the 1998 shooting death of a shopkeeper in the city.

Alfredo “Freddie” Hernandez also faces two special circumstance allegations, which make him eligible for the death penalty, although prosecutors hanot decided whether to seek it.

Hernandez was arrested late last month. After two court appearances, during which he did not have an attorney, Hernandez entered a plea Wednesday in Ventura County Superior Court.

He is being represented by Ventura defense attorneys James Farley and Robert Schwartz, and a preliminary hearing is set for May 1.

Hernandez is the second suspect charged in the shooting death of Mirna Regollar, 25. Jose “Pepe” Castillo is awaiting trial on the same charges.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Regollar, a nursing student who was the mother of two small children, was working at her family’s Santa Paula market on June 2, 1998, when the shooting occurred.

Authorities believe both men were armed and shot Regollar during a botched robbery attempt before fleeing the market.

Regollar was shot once in the back of the head and again as she lay on the ground.

Police arrested Castillo and Hernandez in April 1999.

At the time, Castillo was jailed in connection with the Regollar killing and another homicide--the 1993 stabbing death of 17-year-old Jesse Strobel, a Ventura High School athlete.

Castillo recently pleaded guilty in the Strobel case and was sentenced to four years in custody because he was 15 at the time.