First main authorized battle underway in big Nuestra Familia jail gang indictment

OAKLAND — Now that the alleged leaders of one among California’s 4 dominant jail gangs have been indicted on racketeering fees, they’re doing their greatest to return to their cells in California’s jail system.

In authorized motions filed over the previous 4 weeks, protection attorneys for 15 alleged members of the Nuestra Familia — the jail gang that governs the Northern California-based Norteño and Northern Construction gangs — have decried situations at United States Penitentiary Atwater, the place they’re presently being held. They’ve described the situations as “solitary confinement,” and “torturous,” missing primary hygiene and being ill-equipped for normal visits with attorneys.

The lead defendant, David Cervantes, is 73 years previous, requires a wheelchair, and might solely stand for temporary durations of time with the help of a cane. However federal prosecutors have described him as one of the vital harmful prisoners in all California, labeling him one among seven males on the Nuestra Familia’s normal council who has the flexibility to order murders and allegedly directed an enormous legal group from his state jail cell, with the assistance of contraband cellphones.

Cervantes shouldn’t be the one defendant who requires a wheelchair. So does James “Conejo” Perez, 67; the 2 are presently being pressured to take turns utilizing USP Atwater’s lone incapacity cell. After they’re transferred backwards and forwards each few weeks, they’re handcuffed and can’t transfer with out the assistance of employees, based on their attorneys.

“There isn’t any respectable safety cause for defendants’ extended solitary confinement,” reads a movement signed by 15 protection groups. “To the extent that Atwater specifically requires the defendants be positioned in solitary confinement, the reply is easy: they need to be moved to a facility able to holding them with out violating their constitutional rights.”

The defendants have been transferred from prisons across the state to Atwater final 12 months, after they have been indicted as a part of a multi-headed federal prosecution aimed toward taking down the Nuestra Familia. There have been different comparable makes an attempt at doing simply that; the notorious Operation Black Widow case of the early 2000s noticed a number of leaders of the gang be prosecuted and moved federal prisons removed from California, the place they supposedly have much less management. This newest prosecution contains the lads who prosecutors say changed the Nuestra Familia’s management after the Black Widow case.

Of their response to the protection movement, federal prosecutors have put forth these arguments: that it might be a logistical nightmare to relocate the defendants to state prisons round California, that it’s as much as the U.S. Marshals Service — not a federal choose — the place to accommodate these pretrial detainees, and that different appropriate areas, like Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, refused to take these males, whereas agreeing to accommodate others who’d been indicted in the identical investigation.

“The choices to accommodate the defendants at USP Atwater and to find out the suitable situations of confinement have been made pursuant to the sound discretion of the USMS and USP Atwater, and weren’t made to punish the defendants or in any other case infringe upon their rights,” prosecutors wrote in a response movement.

A federal choose is ready to rule on the movement in March.

In the meantime, the following main authorized battle within the case is on the horizon: In a single movement, attorneys made reference to a number of defendants having “an uncounseled (sic) interview with federal brokers at Moffett Federal Airfield,” earlier than they have been dropped at USP Atwater. They’ve mentioned this interview violated the Sixth Modification and would be the foundation for dismissal motions sooner or later.

In the meantime, one of many solely alleged Nuestra Familia members who wasn’t already in state jail has misplaced his bid for pretrial launch. Rocky Bracamonte, 37, was ordered detained after prosecutors argued he was promoting cocaine and heroin in massive quantities and that an “arsenal” of weapons and ammunition have been at his house. His protection lawyer argued that prosecutors have been utilizing alleged gang membership to bolster an in any other case meritless detention request, and denied the entire prosecution’s allegations towards him, as much as and together with that his nickname within the gang is “Fox.”

One other of the defendants, Salvador Castro, pleaded responsible and was sentenced to a long time in federal jail in an unrelated federal case that stemmed from him arranging drug offers from a state jail cell, utilizing contraband telephones. Castro was sentenced final 12 months, simply 4 months earlier than he was indicted on this case.