The allegations about the way Operation Black Widow handled the case are based on information from the government's discovery documents, Zilversmit said. But neither investigation matched the scope of Operation Knockout in numbers of those arrested and in its aim to effectively shut down the Nuestra Familia in Salinas. ". He said, however, that the courts have generally given law enforcement leeway in their handling of informants, and Cohen agreed. By disrupting gang leadership, we reduce violence on our streets. The Monterey County District Attorneys office has since charged her with felony resisting arrest and she remains in the jail in Salinas. While all Nuestra Familia soldiers and captains in California are expected to follow the orders of Cervantes, a small percentage of the gang remains loyal to the former generals and captains imprisoned in Colorado. The indictment handed down onAugust 25, 2021, and unsealed today, catalogues a litany of crimes allegedly directed by the Nuestra Familias command structure incarcerated in California prisons. Informant Daniel Hernandez, a former Nuestra Familia leader, is expected to be a star witness in the federal trial under way in San Francisco. The investigation, dubbed Operation Black Widow, was a joint effort by the FBI and state and local police in Northern California to break the Nuestra Familia gang, which police say operated from Salinas to the Oregon border and was run from inside the state's high-security Pelican Bay State Prison. The perpetration of violence and other crimes was ordinarily a prerequisite to entrance, continued membership, and advancement in the organization. San Jose: (408) 535-5061. But San Francisco attorney Marc Zilversmit contends the government's own legal filings reveal a federal role in the brutal prison-based gang, and raise troubling questions about how far the FBI can take an undercover operation. "Informants cannot be monitored 24 hours a day," says Coulson, the former FBI commander. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? The indictment, unsealed Thursday, surprised local law enforcement officials who eight years ago began pursuing several of the defendants as part of a task force named Operation Northern Exposure. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot concedes defeat, Southern California home sales fall to all-time low, Denver just got a direct flight to this Caribbean island known for music history and vegetarian cooking, NYC Mayor Adams dismisses need to separate church and state, declares himself a servant of God, Zero-calorie sweetener linked to heart attack and stroke, study finds, Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Such would prove the case with Hernandez, who was paid $52,200 over seven months. Membership in the gang extends beyond prison. But if you step back what does he have to do to move up in the gang? It seems to me their primary responsibility is to stop crime.". reportedly high-ranking members of Nuestra Familia, are inmates at Pelican Bay -- Gerald Rubalcaba . But by April 2001, government agents began to lose control of their prized informant. According to Zilversmit, who represents another defendant, Hernandez not only helped the government build its case, but also took advantage of the freedom given him by law enforcement to first gain the position of go-between for Nuestra Familia leaders in prison and members on the street and eventually to take over the operation. The NF is alleged in the indictment to be a criminal enterprise that was created to organize, protect, discipline, profit from, and maintain the allegiance of gang members on the streets of and within custodial facilities in California. Nevertheless, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court only after consideration of the U.S. "It was decided to allow it to go on until sufficient overt acts were completed that prosecutors felt that convictions could be obtained," Lazzarini testified. Hernandez was a big catch. Summer Lin covers breaking news and general assignment for The Mercury News. And, in the end, is the expected payoff -- indictments of brutal gangsters and busting their criminal enterprise -- worth the risk of paying dangerous informants who may continue to commit serious crime while under government supervision? "They almost become complicit in it," he said. If he is going to betray one group the gang what's going to stop him from betraying the second the government?". Montoya is among a dozen of those arrested Thursday who face charges in federal court, where mandatory sentences for drug and gun crimes often mean longer prison terms. The deputies who arrested her were apparently unaware of the federal charges. An official website of the United States government. For years, investigators have observed Huerta visiting Hernandez in jails and prisons and then delivering messages to local gang members. Among the six men and women indicted March 10 on charges of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana for the gang were Castroville resident Carolyn Huerta, as well as Salinas residents Robert Bubba Hanrahan, Juan Wino Gallegos and Rebecca Guzman. The operation, which will continue to play out in state and federal courts, aims to disband the Salinas-area regiment of a gang that for three decades has dominated criminal activity in farm towns across Northern California. An ambitious multi-agency operation aimed at dismantling the Central Coast leadership structure of the Nuestra Familia gang resulted in more than three dozen arrests during sweeps early Thursday. Several witnesses in the Valley Star case testified that they and others in the gangs Salinas crew often gave Huerta free drugs and helped her with her rent because she was a gang generals wife. Each is charged in this indictment. FBI informant Daniel Her- nandez at a Nuestra Familia gang meeting in Rohnert Park. While the recognized leaders of Nuestra Familia in Pelican Bay ask that members respect the former leaders, they have been effectively stripped of their authority. The FBI has declined to issue any comment on the Black Widow investigation. He previously reported in Washington, D.C., Salinas and the East Bay, and is a middling triathlete. Operation Black Widow. Zilversmit accuses the government of knowing that the murder was going to happen, but doing nothing to either stop it or warn the victim that he was in danger, and he says the money raised from drug and gun deals, as well as robberies and extortion ordered by Hernandez, went to the FBI, not the gang. Federal Courthouse Two of the indictments centered on a dozen people split between two San Jose-based Norteo gangs, alleging a string of crimes involving drug running, robberies, attempted murder and murder, acting Northern California U.S. Attorney Stephanie Hinds said at a Thursday news conference. Huerta is known among gang members as the wife of Joseph "Pinky" Hernandez, one the Nuestra Familia"s top leaders serving a life sentence in a Colorado "supermax" prison. The indictment outlines that the Nuestra Familia used hierarchical and paramilitary structures to control thousands of California gang members and counties across Northern California even while most of the top leadership was incarcerated.. Last fall, when Russoniello came to a Salinas gang summit for law enforcement, at least some of the time was spent on the early planning of Operation Knockout. Martin Ramirez, right, in Monterey County Court, with Sgt. But at the trials, questions about the FBI's ability to fully control its gangster informants are being raised: When the FBI hires a criminal to be its eyes and ears in the inner workings of a dangerous gang, can the informant cease to engage in criminal activity? Stats to follow: THE FEDERAL PROSECUTION. The NF has a formal written constitution and a membership of approximately 250, with an additional 1,000 associates. In the weeks leading up to Lizard's arrest, Kayln . FBI records show that by late July, the bureau stopped working with Hernandez, and he was arrested on a parole violation. In 2001, the five highest-ranking commanders of the gang were transferred to a maximum security prison in Colorado. A lot of the street violence in the past 10 years in Salinas and Watsonville and San Jose stems from this, and in the prison yards too.. . Lawsuits seeking more than $2 billion have been filed against the government by families of people murdered in the course of informant-based investigations. These seven individuals for years led a violent and lucrative criminal organization from their prison cells. He told the young man that if he wanted to be recognized by Nuestra Familia, he could appeal to the generals. Also charged in the indictment are defendants who allegedly participated in two conspiracies to possess and distribute methamphetamine, one in May of 2019 and the other in September 2020 to March 2021. He later told a federal grand jury that law enforcement agents had not arrested the gang members earlier because prosecutors and the task force wanted to gather more evidence in the murder conspiracy. Deputy Chief Kelly McMillin said more of Ceasefires signature call-in meetings will be held in coming weeks in an effort to keep potential spikes in violence at bay. [21] Renewed organization [21], Federal law enforcement agencies, long unable to infiltrate Nuestra Familia, began to step up their investigations in the late 1990s. In a $5 million crime-fighting effort dubbed Operation Black Widow, several Nuestra Familia members agreed to become FBI informants; they wanted protection when they found themselves on the gang's hit list, or they cut a deal as the government was about to indict them. To that end, he announced the debut Thursday of a county narcotics and gang task force overseen by the states Department of Justice. "You can't be with him 24 hours a day. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. Northern District of California But trying to supervise violent criminals is akin to "dancing with the devil.". "Courts tend to say this may well be something that should be policed internally, but they haven't been ready to give the benefit to defendants," Cohen said. He later admitted the "golf" trip was to deliver two pounds of methamphetamine to a cousin. Hernandez cut a plea deal. The problem is that to break gangs and organized crime, inside information is needed, but such groups and especially street gangs are extremely difficult for undercover police to infiltrate. As San Francisco lawyer Mark Zilversmit, an attorney for one of the indicted Nuestra Familia members, notes, "That operative who's now working for the government is going to have to do some pretty bad things. The defendants are scheduled to make initial federal court appearances before U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Nathanael Cousins and U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Sallie Kim today. [14] Thirteen of the defendants pleaded guilty; the other cases are still ongoing. He faces at least 20 years and perhaps life if convicted in the federal case. Thirteen defendants have pleaded guilty. "If (suspects) commit a single overt act that furthers the conspiracy -- buying a gun or a car, for example -- that's enough to arrest them. This civil war has been going on for quite a while, almost since the Black Widow convictions, said Julie Reynolds, a journalist who authored the book Blood in the Fields about the Black Widow case. But Coulson said in an interview that agents should step in quickly if they learn a murder plot has been advanced. The suspects, under heavy surveillance, roamed Salinas with loaded weapons for several days. 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