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Tag: nuestra familia

  • Bay Area man gets 17 months for Norteño gang plot to rip off Union City drug house

    SAN JOSE — A Bay Area man was sentenced to 17 months in prison for plotting with other gang members to rip off a Union City drug house in 2018, court records show.

    Caleb Eller allegedly scoped out the target house, theorizing they would get at least “a brick” of cocaine from the home and that the brothers who ran it, who’d been robbed before, wouldn’t put up a fight. He suggested his cohorts “boot the door down and get it from them,” prosecutors said in court filings.

    Eller was one of dozens of alleged Norteño or Nuestra Familia affiliates charged in 2021 as part of a massive racketeering prosecution aimed at taking down the structure of Norteño gangs throughout California. Since his arrest and pretrial release, he was turning his life around, starting an online business, participating in regular food distribution services for folks in-need, and engaging in youth counseling, his attorney wrote in court filings.

    Then Eller was arrested in a 2020 home invasion robbery in Southern California, disrupting his rehabilitation.

    “He was well into the process of leading a law abiding life and putting his criminal past behind him,” his attorney wrote in court filings.

    Both prosecutors and the defense agreed on a 24-month sentence, but Eller’s lawyer argued that he should get seven months credit for time served behind bars after his arrest in the 2020 robbery. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers granted his time credit and ordered his sentence to run concurrently to whatever he may receive in the Southern California case.

    Nate Gartrell

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  • San Jose man gets 18 months for gang’s plot to rob Union City trap house

    San Jose man gets 18 months for gang’s plot to rob Union City trap house

    SAN JOSE — A San Jose man has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for his involvement in a plot to rob a drug dealer in Union City, one that authorities say was thwarted thanks to a massive wiretap operation.

    Kyle Leonis was sentenced last month by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, after he pleaded guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit a robbery. Leonis was charged as part of a massive investigation aimed at the Nuestra Familia prison gang and several Norteño street gangs it controls, mostly based in San Jose.

    Prosecutors contend that Leonis is a “sixth generation” member of a Norteño subset based in San Jose, but his attorney denied this and says that Leonis is at most an “associate” of a few young men who are gang members.

    The 2018 plot to rob the Union City home was discussed in detail while authorities were wiretapping gang members’ phones, according to court records. After the FBI raided the home of the drug dealer they intended to rob, the co-conspirators allegedly talked about how there was likely “a rat” in their midst and Leonis asked if they should “86” that person, who was later assaulted, prosecutors said in a sentencing memo.

    But Leonis’ lawyer said the term “86” was not a reference to a violent act, but actually to ostracizing the alleged snitch from social gatherings. Leonis works in the restaurant industry where the term “86” is used often to refer to banning someone from an establishment, his lawyer added.

    In that same vein, Leonis’ lawyer included several support letters that vouched for Leonis’ character, and said he has “grown tremendously” since his arrest in 2021. One of those letters, written by the owner of a pizza restaurant, predicts that Leonis’ work as a pizza chef will transform his life for the better.

    “It isn’t just pizza with us. It is a way of life,” the letter says. “It led me down a road that set me straight, and I know this will do the same for Kyle.”

    Nate Gartrell

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