Gang Member Convicted in Murder-Torture Case
10/16/02
A San Mateo County jury has convicted a 21-year-old man of voluntary manslaughter for his role in the death of a Daly City teen killed by his fellow gang members because he snitched to police.
On Tuesday the jury dismissed the first-degree murder charge against Orlando Cuadra, which was accompanied by a special torture allegation that could have landed the former Daly City resident in jail for life.
Instead, Cuadra could get anything from probation to 11 years in prison when Judge Dale Hahn sentences him Nov. 18.
Cuadra is the sixth and final defendant to be convicted for the murder of 17-year-old William Tejada, a Daly City Locos gang member whose badly stabbed and beaten body was found lying outside an elementary school in April 1999.
Prosecutors contend that the six assailants, three of whom, including Cuadra, were under 18 at the time, attacked Tejada because he gave up information about a drive-by shooting to San Francisco police that resulted in another gang member's arrest.
During Cuadra's 21-day trial in Redwood City, a coroner testified that Tejada had more than 175 separate injuries to his body and almost 70 stab wounds to his head alone.
After four days of deliberation, the jury read a voluntary manslaughter verdict Tuesday afternoon. Goldscheider said Cuadra was thankful, but stoic.
Cuadra had been scheduled to be tried alongside 20-year-old Brando Gamez, but in late August Gamez accepted a deal with the prosecution in which he pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and 19 counts of assault with a deadly weapon in exchange for a 30-year prison sentence.
last summer, a Redwood City jury convicted Juan Ruiz, 21, of first-degree murder and Randy Reyes, 21, of second-degree murder in connection with Tejada's death. They were sentenced to 28 and 17 years to life, respectively.
Source: KTVU/Fox2 and Bay City News
I hope they give that coward 11 years. I hate GANG members with a passion for taking lives over bullshit.
