A 29-year-old man convicted in the fatal shooting of a drug dealer in Placentia, an attack allegedly orchestrated from prison by the reputed head of the Orange County branch of the Mexican Mafia, has won a new trial based on violations of his Miranda rights.
Augustine Velasquez was sentenced on June 2, 2023, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the Jan. 19, 2017, killing of 35-year-old Robert Rios.
Velasquez was the only defendant in the attack convicted in Orange County Superior Court. The rest of the defendants allegedly involved were charged in federal court and are awaiting trial.
The case was beset by multiple legal problems in state court before federal prosecutors picked it up in a wide-ranging racketeering case against the Orange County chapter of the Mexican Mafia.
Before the trial, gang charges in the case were dismissed as fallout from an evidence booking scandal involving multiple deputies who either failed to book evidence or did it after their shift in violation of department policy.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue granted the motion to dismiss the gang charges because an Orange County sheriff’s deputy who testified during the preliminary hearing as a gang expert was found to have been dishonest while discussing his training regarding booking of evidence.
That made the trial trickier for Senior Deputy District Attorney Dave Porter, who was not allowed to mention co-defendant Johnny Martinez, the reputed Mexican Mafia chief for Orange County, who was accused of masterminding the attack on the victim while incarcerated. Porter was also excluded from mentioning the Mexican Mafia at all.
Velasquez got involved when Charles Coghill, “an errand runner” for co-defendant Gregory Munoz, asked him to “collect money” from Rios, according to a Fourth District Court of Appeal ruling handed down Wednesday.
Velasquez, Ricardo Valenzuela and Ysrael Cordova, were armed and sent off to Rios’ home in Placentia just before midnight.
Coghill has cooperated with authorities and was a key witness for the prosecution.
Rios fought back against the three men and was shot by Cordova, according to prosecutors. Velasquez caught a stray in the leg from the Mac-10 assault rifle.
The three men fled, but Coghill dumped Velasquez by the side of the road. Velasquez called his best friend, John, who drove him to a hospital in Oceanside, where he had surgery; he wore a cast for more than a month.
Velasquez told San Diego County sheriff’s deputies that he was robbed and shot by a Black man by the side of the road when he got out to relieve himself on the way home from a party.
When Placentia investigators later linked Velasquez to the shooting he was arrested after Anaheim police rear-ended his car and took him into custody.
Placentia police Sgt. B. Angel “asked Velasquez a series of ‘medical and booking questions’ while filling out the booking paperwork,” according to the ruling.
Velasquez “repeatedly asked why he was under arrest,” prompting Angel to tell him Detective J. Reger would fill him in later.
“I’m not going to answer any more booking questions until I have an attorney, then,” Velasquez told Angel, according to the ruling.
When Velasquez was brought into a room for questioning it was papered over with crime scene photographs and of the suspect being treated in the hospital, according to the ruling.
Reger laid out the evidence investigators had gathered against him and threatened Velasquez with a lengthy prison term and the arrest of his friend for being an accomplice, according to the ruling. When Velasquez was shown surveillance video of the shooting he finally relented and confessed to his part in the attack, the ruling states.
Velasquez made a “clear and unambiguous invocation of his right to counsel, so all questioning should have ceased at that point,” the justices ruled. “Because Velasquez invoked his right to counsel during a custodial investigation, the questioning should have stopped there. It did not.”
The justices noted that Angel failed to tell Reger that Velasquez invoked his right to an attorney.
“We further conclude Velasquez’s responses to questioning were involuntary and coerced because they were produced by threats of the death penalty or life in prison, followed by threats to his best friend John,” the justices ruled.
The justices also denied the Attorney General’s argument that the error was harmless because so much other evidence tied Velasquez to the killing.
“This argument has initial appeal,” the justices noted. “It seems beyond dispute that Velasquez was at the scene of the murder and took part in the ambush; the surveillance footage, cell phone records, and DNA evidence confirm as much.”
But, the justices added, “that other evidence does not speak to some of the most heavily litigated issues at trial — whether Velasquez was a major participant in the robbery and acted with reckless indifference to human life. His defense to all charges depended on his state of mind and convincing the jury he played no role in planning and had no reason to expect violence.”
Velasquez’s attorney, Robison Harley, argued at trial that his client was only involved because Coghill was a neighbor and was helping him earlier that day in a Long Beach salvage yard to get parts to repair the defendant’s car, which was damaged in a hit-and-run, Harley said.
He maintained this his client “number one, was not the shooter and, number two, never intended to kill anybody” when he went along for the drive to Rios’ house. In fact, a highly “intoxicated” Rios “pounded” Velasquez during the conflict, Harley said.
Narrating a video of the attack, he said Velasquez “never pointed a gun at Rios, never attempted to hit Rios with a gun, never hit Rios with his hands.”
Velasquez was seen attempting to hold Rios “down with his left hand,” Harley said. “He never did anything to provoke that violent reaction from Rios.”
The victim had “snorted” methamphetamine and other drugs, “causing this violent sudden outburst” against the defendants, Harley said.
“Mr. Rios continued pounding on Mr. Velasquez until Mr. Rios was shot,” he said.
The justices ruled that Velasquez’s confession “was significant because it enabled the prosecution to cast doubt on Velasquez’s professed claims of innocence and assail his credibility.”
The justices noted that Velasquez might not have testified on his behalf if the statements to police were presented to the jury.
In a retrial, prosecutors are barred from using Velasquez’s statements to police.
Donahue said at sentencing that Velasquez “received a fair trial,” and he noted that he asked Porter to make an offer to the defendant. Porter offered 22 years in exchange for a manslaughter plea, Donahue said.