“Basically it’s a gang of old men,” Valdemar said. They keep their numbers tight, only 200 or 300, compared to the 54,000 members of the Sureños.
Trial testimony brought the Mexican Mafia into sharp focus.Ĭalifornia gang expert Richard Valdemar testified that the Mexican Mafia was a powerful prison gang formed as a syndicate in the style of the Italian Mafia. “No, because if I say something, the person who is going to be killed is me,” Perez testified.
“He wouldn’t look me in the eyes,” Rivera said.Īnswering a question from a prosecutor, Perez testified that he never even considered warning his friend about his impending death. Rivera later testified that when he entered the yard that day at 7:40 a.m., he approached Perez to give his former cellmate a hug, their normal practice, but Perez reached for his hand instead. Political dynamic shiftThe only explanation Torrez gave Perez for killing Rivera was that “Rivera had been disrespectful.” ” ‘If you don’t do it, it will be done to you,’ ” Torrez threatened, according to Perez. Perez said he told Torrez he personally liked Rivera.
Reputed Mexican Mafia assassin Arcadio Perez, 54, who is serving a life sentence for killing two other inmates, testified of his angst when Torrez ordered him to kill Rivera, his close friend and former cellmate. It implied that Torrez’s death was a sanctioned hit. Vasquez testified that unless gang leaders approved the inside hit, Richard Santiago would be killed. Inside Supermax at the time were two leaders of the Mexican Mafia: Ruben “Nite Owl” Castro, then 45, and Adolph “Champ” Reynoso, then 61. Defense witness Daniel Vasquez, a former warden of San Quentin and an expert on the Mexican Mafia, acknowledged as much under cross-examination. Prosecutors used the gang etiquette against Rivera during the trial by pointing out that to sanction the hit of a Mexican Mafia leader, Richard Santiago would have needed a “green light” from two other Mexican Mafia leaders. He agreed with correctional officers who testified that Supermax houses dangerous gang leaders, and that many of them have gray hair. He might as well have just walked up and slapped me,” Bridgewater testified. “If someone did that to me, personally, I would attack him. Bridgewater gave a primer on prison etiquette, describing why Torrez asking for Rivera’s shoes on the day of the fatal beating was a deadly challenge. His face was wrinkled but he still amply filled out a white prison T-shirt. Wayne Bridgewater, 63, an Aryan Brotherhood shot-caller who killed four men in federal prisons, strode slowly, deliberately to the witness stand. If they didn’t do it, they could be killed. Gang members have been ordered to kill siblings. He said that when ordered by a gang leader, even one who is elderly and ill, soldiers must kill when ordered. He admitted being a founding member of the Black Guerilla Family, one of California’s four most-violent prison gangs. Prison etiquetteThough prison is largely a young man’s world, gang members called “soldiers” take their orders from silver-haired “shot-callers” who decide who pays cell-house “rent” to stay safe, and who lives or dies.īald-headed, stooped, with admitted prostate ailments, James Holiday, 73, wore grandfatherly glasses and testified about doing stabbings in a soft voice. Rivera will spend the rest of his life in prison.īut while they spoke matter-of-factly about bloody hand-to-hand combat with cell-made knives, they characterized a hierarchy of leadership similar in some ways to the military or mainstream society. The jury didn’t buy the argument and found him guilty on April 21, the 10-year anniversary of the murder, rejecting the premise that prisoners should be tried under different standards because of the unique characteristics of Supermax. Their testimony was intended to persuade jurors in the first-degree murder trial of Silvestre “Chikali” Rivera, 57, that prison culture dictated that he either stomp Torrez to death on April 21, 2005, or be killed himself. Penitentiary, the highest security prison in the United States, or “Supermax,” after labeling them and some 415 others the most dangerous prisoners in the federal system. Bureau of Prisons had placed each of them in Florence in the Administrative Maximum U.S. Like murder victim Manuel “Tati” Torrez, 63, the three trial witnesses had earned reputations for ruthlessness by leading the most violent prison gangs in America: the Aryan Brotherhood, the Mexican Mafia and the Black Guerilla Family. But by no means could they be considered weak, at least not in a prison-culture sense. They walked slowly, hobbled by age more than by the clinking ankle and waist chains they wore as they entered the federal courtroom. Murder trial reveals nuances of lethal gang politics inside Supermax – The Denver Post