From the Los Angeles Times
Anti-gang activist accused of gang crimes
Alex Sanchez, known nationally for his anti-gang work with Homies Unidos, is held on conspiracy and racketeering charges. He allegedly was involved with the Mara Salvatrucha gang.
By Scott Glover and Richard Winton
June 25, 2009
A nationally known anti-gang activist was arrested Wednesday on federal racketeering and conspiracy charges stemming from his alleged involvement in one of the most violent street gangs in the United States.
Alex Sanchez, executive director of Homies Unidos, a gang-intervention nonprofit with offices in Los Angeles and El Salvador, was among two dozen alleged members or associates of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13, charged in a 66-page indictment that was unsealed Wednesday.
The defendants, with monikers such as Creeper, Grinch, Pain and Tears, were involved in a variety of crimes, including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, extortion and drug trafficking, over a 15-year period, the indictment alleges. Among the alleged crimes was a plot to kill a Los Angeles Police Department detective who specialized in investigating the gang, authorities said. Gang members had gone so far as choosing a handgun with which to kill Det. Frank Flores, authorities allege, but police thwarted the plot.
Sanchez's arrest comes as officials seek to train former gang members to work with at-risk youths. He is at least the fourth anti-gang worker to be charged with gang-related crimes in the last several years.
Identified in court papers by the gang name Rebelde, or rebel, Sanchez was allegedly a gang leader, known as a "shot caller." He is accused of conspiring with fellow gang members to kill a man in El Salvador in 2006 and other crimes.
Daniel McMullen, a top FBI official in Los Angeles, called Sanchez a gang member "who used the guise of a reformist to deceive the public and to play both sides by accepting funds from well-intentioned donors . . . while allegedly committing crimes on behalf of the gang."
Sanchez, 37, was arrested at his home in Bellflower. He broke into tears at a U.S. District Court hearing at which he was read the charges. He is expected to enter a plea next week. The board of directors of Homies Unidos issued a statement Wednesday evening expressing "full support" for Sanchez and saying that its members were "confident in Alex's innocence."
Homies Unidos received about $1.6 million in tax-deductible donations from 2002 through 2007, according to tax returns available on Guidestar, an online database of nonprofits. Some of the money came from celebrities, according to law enforcement sources who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak about the matter. It was not immediately clear how much money came from government sources, but at least $10,000 came from Los Angeles, according to the city controller's office.
Before his arrest, Sanchez had been winning accolades from politicians and others for years for his work with Homies Unidos. Based in an office near MacArthur Park, the organization performed tattoo removal for former gangsters who wanted a fresh start and offered life-skills courses for those leaving the gang life.
"For 10 years Homies Unidos has been a catalyst for change, working to end violence and promote peace in our communities," Sanchez wrote on the group's website. "In fact we are living proof that prevention works and that peace is possible."
Sanchez, a former Mara Salvatrucha gang member in the early 1990s, first came to public attention during the LAPD Rampart corruption scandal a decade ago. Allegedly reformed and working at Homies Unidos, he was planning to testify on behalf of a teenager who contended that he had been falsely implicated in a killing.
But before Sanchez could do so, he was arrested by the LAPD and turned over to immigration authorities, who began deportation proceedings for the illegal immigrant who had reentered the United States after having been deported following a car-theft conviction.
Sanchez applied for political asylum, arguing that he might be killed if he was returned to El Salvador because of his former involvement with the Mara Salvatrucha and his outspoken stance against police corruption.
His case became something of a cause celebre when police critics cited it as an example of how officers in the Rampart Division tried to neutralize potentially problematic witnesses by having them deported.
Among his chief supporters at the time was then-state Sen. Tom Hayden, who accused LAPD officers of improperly targeting Sanchez for arrest. Hayden supported Sanchez's bid for asylum, which was approved in 2002.
Hayden said Wednesday that it was too soon to assess the merit of the case against Sanchez, but that he does not believe the allegations negated his past achievements.
"He's one of the most sensitive, knowledgeable and effective anti-violence practitioners I've met," Hayden said in a telephone interview. "The violence he has averted in Los Angeles and El Salvador is hard to quantify, but there's no doubt he's done it."
L.A. City Councilman Ed Reyes, who said he gave $5,000 in public funds to Homies Unidos for a children's soccer program two years ago, said he was "totally shocked" by the charges.
Though prosecutors have filed racketeering charges against 18th Street and other gangs, the charges announced Wednesday mark the first time such a case has been brought against Mara Salvatrucha. According to authorities, the gang was formed in Los Angeles in the early 1980s by immigrants who fled war-torn El Salvador. Officials estimate the gang has several thousand members across the United States, as well as in Mexico and Central America. Federal authorities said the gang was one of the most violent in the nation.
The case against Mara Salvatrucha is the third major gang filing by the U.S. attorney's office in recent weeks.
Authorities filed what they called the largest gang case in the nation last month against the Barrio Hawaiian Gardens gang, which became a priority for law enforcement after a member killed an L.A. County Sheriff's deputy in 2005.
Last week, federal authorities issued a new round of charges in a pending case against the 18th Street gang, including allegations that a local defense attorney was serving as a liaison between the gang and the Mexican Mafia.
Mike "Cubano" Garcia, 64, a former Boyle Heights gang member who runs a gang program at White Memorial Medical Center, said the charges against Sanchez erode confidence in programs such as his.
"People start wondering, 'Man, are all these guys crooked?' " Garcia said.
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More Americans Killed by Illegal Aliens than Iraq War, Study Says
"...if our military can understand that Iraq's security depends in measure on the ability to protect its border against insurgents and terrorists, then why isn't our country similarly protecting our own borders?"
Jim Brown
OneNewsNow.com
February 22, 2007
Illegal aliens are killing more Americans than the Iraq war, says a new report from Family Security Matters that estimates some 2,158 murders are committed every year by illegal aliens in the U.S. The group says that number is more than 15 percent of all the murders reported by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the U.S. and about three times the representation of illegal aliens in the general population.
Mike Cutler, a former senior special agent with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (the former INS), is a fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and an advisor to Family Security Matters (FSM). He says the high number of Americans being killed by illegal aliens is just part of the collateral damage that comes with tolerating illegal immigration.
"The military actually called for the BORTAC team, ... the elite unit of the Border Patrol, to be detailed to Iraq to help to secure the Iraqi border," Cutler notes. "Now, if our military can understand that Iraq's security depends in measure on the ability to protect its border against insurgents and terrorists, then why isn't our country similarly protecting our own borders?" he asks.
"We are now five and a half years, nearly, after 9/11, and yet our borders remain open," the Center for Immigration Studies fellow observes. "We have National Guardsmen assigned on the border, but it turns out they are unarmed," he points out. "Their rules of engagement are very simple: if armed intruders head your way, run in the other direction."
This situation would "almost be comical if it wasn't so tragic," Cutler asserts. "If our borders are wide open, this means that drugs, criminals, and terrorists are entering our country just as easily as the dishwashers," he says.
The report from FSM estimates that the 267,000 illegal aliens currently incarcerated in the nation are responsible for nearly 1,300,000 crimes, ranging from drug arrests to rape and murder. Such statistics, Cutler contends, debunk the claim that illegal immigration is a victimless crime. "Then we even have another problem," he adds, "and that's the Visa Waiver Program."
The federal government's Visa Waiver Program enables nationals of certain countries to travel to the United States for tourism or business for stays of 90 days or less without obtaining a visa. According to the U.S. State Department website, the waiver program was established in 1986 with the objective of "eliminating unnecessary barriers to travel," stimulating America's tourism industry, and allowing the government to focus consular resources in other areas.
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According to a recent study from the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center, Hispanics involved in car crashes are two-and-a-half times more likely to be drunk than white drivers and three times more likely to be drunk than black drivers.
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