Accomplice in Fatal Shooting Sentenced to 4 Years in Prison

An accomplice in a deadly gang shooting in a Newbury Park neighborhood last year was sentenced Thursday to four years in state prison.

Van Nuys gang member Carlos Albert Escobar, 25, pleaded guilty in March to a charge of acting as an accomplice after the fact in the shooting, which left one man dead and another wounded.

Judge Bruce Clark sentenced Escobar to two years for aiding in the shooting that killed 19-year-old Edgar Cruz, and another two for being an active gang member at the time.

“Carlos Escobar is a documented member of a gang,” Deputy Dist. Atty. John West said. “And the people feel this was an appropriate sentence for assisting . . . in the murder of Edgar Cruz.”

Escobar, who has been in custody for a year, made no comment at the sentencing.

Prosecutors say Escobar is a member of a well-known Salvadoran street gang in Los Angeles that traveled to the Conejo Creek apartment complex in Newbury Park to take part in an attack on Cruz, a resident who had an ongoing feud with an associate of Escobar’s who was also living in the complex.

Investigators said two carloads of gang members came to the neighborhood about 8:30 p.m. on April 28, 2000, and shot Cruz and his friend Andres Morales, 18, in the middle of the street as neighbors and their children mingled nearby.

Both were hit in the abdomen, but only Morales survived.

Prosecutors say gang member Jesus Miranda, 23, fired the shots. Miranda is scheduled for trial on murder charges in July. He is the first gang member in Ventura County eligible for the death penalty under a law passed last year because he allegedly committed the slaying while an active member of a street gang.

West said the D.A.’s office has not decided whether to ask a jury to consider the death penalty if Miranda is convicted.

West said Escobar drove the car that helped Miranda escape from the scene and also hid inside an engine compartment the .357 magnum that prosecutors think was used in the shootings.

The violence shook residents of the Conejo Creek complex, located in one of the nation’s safest cities. Two days later, shots were fired at a nearby Mexican restaurant, where friends of the shooting victims had gathered on their way to a memorial service for Cruz.

No one was hurt in that incident.

Authorities quickly arrested Escobar, Miranda and five other members of their gang, all living in Van Nuys at the time of the attack.

Investigators eventually released most of the suspects, but the grand jury indicted Miranda on suspicion of murder and Escobar as an accomplice after the fact.