Man Convicted in Fatal and Near Fatal Shootings in OC
Man Convicted in Fatal and Near Fatal Shootings in OC
by Contributing Editor
An ex-con was convicted Monday of attempted murder and murder charges for nearly killing a teenage boy and a week later gunning down a man in front of an illegal gambling business in Garden Grove.
Richard Adrian Trevino, 44, was also found guilty of assault with a semiautomatic firearm and two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon. Jurors, who deliberated for about five hours, also found true sentencing enhancements for the discharge of a gun causing death, personal use of a firearm and inflicting great bodily injury on one victim.
Trevino, who is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 15, faces at least 75 years to life in prison.
“Whoever disrespects me is going to get capped,” Deputy District Attorney Nick Thomo said the defendant told a witness to the July 11, 2016, near-fatal shooting of 16-year-old Miguel Carrillo at the corner of Old McFadden and Cypress avenues in Santa Ana.
“A week later, he was disrespected by Frank Brady, so he shot him,” Thomo told the jury.
Brady was gunned down just before noon on July 18, 2016, in a parking lot at 13478 Harbor Blvd. It’s unclear what provoked a dispute between the two men, but surveillance video shows the 35-year-old victim confronting the defendant just before Trevino stepped out of a car and shot him 10 times, according to Thomo.
The two were in front of a smoke shop that was a front for an illegal gambling operation, the prosecutor said. Police suspected Brady was upset that the car he was driving was stolen and that the defendant had something to do with it.
Ballistics tests show the same gun was used in both shootings, the prosecutor said.
Co-defendant Erica Stone, who was behind the wheel of the car Trevino was in, was also charged with murder, but pleaded guilty as an accessory after the fact and is expected to have the murder charge dropped when she is sentenced on Friday, Thomo said.
Stone told authorities she was frightened that Trevino, whose street moniker is “Joker,” would kill her, so she helped him get away and the two drove to the home of Maria Aldana, 37, an ex-girlfriend of the defendant, according to the prosecutor.
When they arrived, Trevino told Aldana he was “in big trouble” before he disrobed and handed Aldana the clothes with the instructions to “get rid of them,” Thomo said. He said Aldana torched the clothes in a barbecue pit, and added that Stone told investigators Trevino doused himself with cleaning solution to “get rid of gunshot residue.”
Trevino’s DNA was found on bullets in the car he was in with Stone, Thomo said. Witnesses to the killing followed Stone as she drove away from the crime scene, the prosecutor said.
Investigators also linked Trevino and Stone to the shooting with cell phone records that show where they were at the time of the killing, Thomo said.
In the non-fatal shooting, the victim refused to cooperate with investigators and did not testify, Thomo said. But witnesses testified that they saw Trevino open fire on the teen before apologizing to a neighbor for getting blood on the lawn and then adding, “When you disrespect me, you get capped,” Thomo said.
Trevino’s attorney, Jeremy Goldman, told jurors that his client “was not the shooter on July 11 or July 18.”
Witnesses were unable to identify Trevino in photo lineups as the shooter in the attack on Carrillo, Goldman said.
The defense attorney noted that Stone continued to face a murder charge unless she fingered Trevino.
“You will get to evaluate that testimony and decide her motivation — self-preservation or truth telling,” Goldman told jurors.
Stone “is the only witness who will tell you Mr. Trevino is the shooter” in the Brady murder, the lawyer said.
The defendant was captured in Tecate, Mexico, and returned to Orange County about a month after the fatal shooting.
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All credit goes to Contributing Editor
Originally published on https://mynewsla.com
