Esqueda told the family that the whole situation was a police cover-up and he was certain that they would win in court. But when he met with David, it was like he was meeting with a different man. In an extraordinary move, Toby Mitchell joined his former club's main rivals last month. David might not have heard the police announce themselves at all. Lugo immediately took hold of the situation. David Santillan founded the Mongols Biker Gang in East Los Angeles. He felt abandoned, waiting in Mens Central Jail as time ticked forward. The only illicit material found was a small baggie of meth and one stolen firearm. Although the police told David that he shot officer Diamond, David was starting to have his doubts. The current president of the Mongols Motorcycle Club is David Santillan, a man who claims that the organization has changed its code of conduct to exclude drug abusers and criminals. After Judge Carters ruling, he declared vindication in what he said was a contrived internal political witch hunt to smear my name and to get me dethroned.. There were pictures of Martinez in Mongols clothes and photos of David arm in arm with Mongols President, Little Dave. After listening to Martinezs conversations with the Mongols, Detective Lugo was certain that Martinez shot the gun. Before moving to Annie's current city of Temple City, CA, Annie lived in San Gabriel CA and Arcadia CA. ATF officials view Santillans public declarations about the club cleaning house as hollow words; they continue to treat the Mongols as a serious threat. He was the assigned first man. After Sergeant Aguiar and Officer Diamond breached the metal security door with the ripram, he was supposed to be the first officer to enter the household. In the wake of the preliminary hearing, David Martinez slowly awakened to the state of his feeble defense with Edward Esqueda. The good guys had fought the bad guys and the bad had left a bloody mark. As of this republication, David Martinez remains incarcerated, pending retrial. Facebook gives people the power to share and makes the world more open and connected. The Martinez family was also present, seated in the left side of the gallery. The recordings also proved that David didnt brag about his actions to the other Mongols at Montebello or during the Perkins Operation. Despite the defenses victory, David Martinez remains in jail. I dont find theres sufficient cooperation to merit overturning the conviction, Judge Carter said in a ruling from the bench. He didnt know it was the police didnt see them and didnt hear them. His inquiries were effective, but they were undermined by constant objections leading, asked and answered, improper hypothetical, misstates the evidence. He wanted to watch his children grow up and he was willing to do anything to make that happen, even if it meant confronting the horrific truth. But it all felt inconsequential compared to the content on the tapes. She informed him that his father was doing well after having surgery to repair the bullet wound on his arm. Eventually, Martinez was moved back to the Mongols cellblock where he continued to reside in fear but could at least sleep in peace for a few hours at night. Best Match Powered by Whitepages Premium AGE -- David Olivar Santillan Union City, CA Aliases Davi Olivar View Full Report Addresses Ventura Way, Union City, CA Sullivan forged ahead in his defense of David Martinez. On the third stop, Noyola himself entered the operation, determined to extract the information that the less experienced officers had failed to obtain. He needed Martinez to state that he knew police were on his porch and that he shot his gun intending to kill. Three years passed and it seemed everything was the same. The Mongols are relying on an explosive video shared by Mr. Santillan's wife, Annie Santillan, who, during a stretch when she was angry with her husband over his infidelity, had her. We came to understand that this trial was part of a much larger story, one that informed how Deputy District Attorneys on behalf of the People of California framed their entire argument. The Mongols are a recent arrival in El Paso and one of three major biker gangs in the city, a police gang investigator testified earlier this year in the trial of a member of the Kinfolk MC. The stakes of the operation had now dramatically increased. This man took full responsibility for shooting a police officer. The Mongols are relying on an explosive video shared by Mr. Santillan's wife, Annie Santillan, who, during a stretch when she was angry with her husband over his infidelity, had her daughter record a conversation in which he appeared to refer to protection he had received from the A.T.F. Unfortunately, the change in environment provided no solace: Martinezs new block was filled with alleged rapists, pedophiles and child-murderers. The Mongols are equally mystified. It was a colossal task for Sullivan who was, by his own admission, not stellar with technology. The current president of the Mongols Motorcycle Club is David Santillan, a man who claims that the organization has changed its code of conduct to exclude drug abusers and criminals. At the core of the case was a video of a conversation between Mr. Santillan and his wife that she had passed on to members of the biker club last year, accompanied by a text message in which she told them that her husband had been a confidential government informant. . Noyla dodged the question Theres no way to tell, he said. Sandra testified for hours regarding Martinezs involvement in the Mongols Motorcycle Club. Garden clicked his pen with satisfaction as Noyola noted that Martinez mentioned being concerned about informants in the transit vehicle. Fundraisers were held to contribute to legal expenses, which initially amounted to $60,000 and were constantly growing with Esquedas long hours. Martinezs retrial faced further delays when the pandemic threw court schedules into disarray. After speaking with his family, David was now convinced that the police had lied to him about the shooting. Welcome to the Saintillan Research Group! 13.6K followers. As it stands, The Suit, Doc and Little Rubes have been permanently 86'd from the Mongols by president David "Lil Dave" Santillan, who says they are " out bad ". The rest of the SWAT team searched the home. Now officers feared that the Mongols were poised to retaliate. The Mongols claimed that Mr. Santillan had an inappropriate working relationship with an A.T.F. The Mongols MC will not get a second chance to clear itself of federal racketeering charges after a judge last week denied its request for a new trial. Since those early days, the Mongols have grown in number. But Sullivan knew that the jury would judge more than the seconds and the shot. Esqueda attempted to pivot, asking the medical examiner if the metal fragments found during Diamonds autopsy could have come from a door breaching explosive.Subsequent witnesses refuted his theory, explaining that no explosives were used to open the door, only a ripram a manual push-pull device. The slug went straight through Arturos arm and blew through Shaun Diamonds neck. Inside the door on the evening of October 28, 2014, thirty-six-year-old termite inspector David Martinez was working on inspection reports in the study. Do inmates sometimes lie because they know theyre being recorded? he asked. David told me that they had been meeting every day at Starbucks before trial until Judge Carter told them not to because a juror saw them together, Mr. Stubbs testified in August. The evidence and the full force of the state were mounted against him and his lawyer was suspiciously absent, difficult to contact, and abrupt in his correspondence. But he still had a pulse albeit a weak one. Then, after more than a month apart, Sandra finally regained custody of Alyssa and David Jr. allowing the tight family to rally together and to lift Martinez spirits. Martinez didnt mean to shoot anyone. In the shadowy halls, he was attacked with a shank and sustained a gash to his arm. In the video, Santillan mentioned that the lead agent in the RICO case, John Ciccone, had protected him over the years. apply. It is the First Amendment issues associated with the case that are most important, Judge Carter said on Thursday, and whether the government has the right to seize control of a trademarked emblem as a way of eliminating a groups ability to operate and recruit. Then Sullivan focused on what Moss saw during the operation. Each of their dress blues nicely ironed, all of their tie pins immaculately shined. SANTA ANA, Calif. After federal prosecutors won a landmark racketeering conviction against the Mongols motorcycle club, in an attempt to put an end to the outlaw groups long record of murder, attempted murder and drug dealing, the Mongols countered with an unusual claim: Their leader, they said, had been secretly helping the government in its efforts to bring down the organization. When Martinez took the stand, it was Deputy District Attorney Michael Blake who rose from his chair. When he spoke with members of the Pomona Police Department, love and support radiated from their ranks, but underneath a righteous anger brewed: outrage aimed at the man who killed Shaun Diamond. But as my Crime Story colleagues and I watched the case unspool, we realized that our binary paradigm was eroding. For three weeks, officers took the stand. Michael Tyrone Delaney for The New York Times. Unable to keep Martinez in the Montebello holding cell, Noyola and Lugo spun together a Perkins operation one that would take place during Martinez transit from Montebello to the LA county jail the next day. This was not an act. We use a combination of modeling, theory, and numerical simulations to study the dynamics and properties of flows involving a microstructure (such as particles . Ethan Tate, Meghann M. Cuniff and Lauren Herstik contributed reporting. Communications with Mr. Santillan, Mr. Ciccone said, were limited to such matters as ensuring public safety at Mongols events. But first he would have to convince the judge to admit the recordings in court a ruling she had waffled on during pretrial motions. He called out for his dad to wait, but Arturo had already turned the knob. After two days, the preliminary hearing came to a conclusion. It would have been impossible from where he was standing. It was a blow to Sullivan, who knew that the tapes could offer the jury a valuable snapshot of his clients emotional and mental state in the hours after the incident. The judge read the official charges brought against him: capital murder with the special circumstance of murder of a police offier engaged in his duties. He was forceful in his statements, never wavering in voice or message: the embodiment of the strength and resolve of the law. An easy no. Santillan's wife, Annie Santillan, told ABC7 that she recorded their conversation because the couple had become estranged due to his infidelity. The California motorcycle group had claimed that its former president, David Santillan, was a government informant. That evening Jim Moss had been positioned behind a Mustang in a neighbors driveway. Outside, SWAT paramedic Jim Moss tended to Shaun Diamond. Diamonds team was tasked with serving a search warrant to a house inhabited by David Martinez, an alleged member of the Mongols Motorcycle Club. Beanbag shot would not cleanly go through Shaun Diamonds neck. David was ready to accept that he shot Shaun Diamond. With all this responsibility weighing on Sullivans shoulders, he arrived at counsels table for pre-trial motions. This was not the score they were looking for. All the evidence had been presented. The clock was ticking. Sullivan had nearly all the pieces of a winning case. The interactions are recorded on audio and video surveillance and their use is admissible in a court of law. Later, he gave his kidney to save his son, Kellys life when he was in need of a transplant. He called Officer Noyola to the stand and asked him the purpose of the Perkins Operation. He told the undercover officers that he assumed it was the Mongols when he heard the banging. They called themselves outlaws and one-percenters referring to a comment by the American Motorcyclist Association that 99% of motorcyclists were law abiding citizens, implying that one percent were not. But he knew something that gave him hope during the time Esqueda served as Martinezs attorney, the DAs office had decided not to pursue the death penalty. Blake took his aim. The shooter should pay for that. Jack Garden was quick to point out that the SWAT team only used beanbag shot. She added that David's mistress had been. It was even worse than living in fear of the Mongols. In the wake of the emotional testimony, Sullivan cross-examined Moss with dogged persistence, causing him to concede that the police announcements were made by multiple voices that sometimes overlapped. They would judge David Martinez as a person. Santillan had called his wife in June 2021to beg for forgiveness. ATF officials view Santillan's public declarations about the club cleaning house as hollow words; they continue to treat the Mongols as a serious threat. The rocker and back patch meant Martinez was a full member. The SWAT team invaded the home in full force rifles raised. But of all those cases, few if any bore the weight of the circumstances now looming over David. But after a motorcycle accident kept Martinez from working for several months, financial strain brought the family back under the same roof. The public defender had a plan and he wasnt going down without a fight. He promised he'd put his infidelities behind him, get sober and be a better father. The air buzzed with the hushed tones of dozens of different conversations each regarding a different case. She admitted Martinez owned the items and that he had been involved with the brotherhood for over three years. (Photo by Bill Alkofer, Contributing . Awoken by the deafening discord, ten-year-old David Jr. ran out of his bedroom in his pajamas. Five and a half years after his arrest, David Martinez continues to wait in jail. It was in the context of these parallel federal and local investigations that seven search warrants were served to suspected gang members residences on October 28, 2014 as part of a multi-agency operation to crack down on illicit club activities. Financial strain brought the family that the police didnt see them and didnt hear them sufficient cooperation to merit the... 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