Reputed Orange County Mexican Mafia boss cleared of 1994 murder

Reputed Orange County Mexican Mafia chief Johnny Martinez won a major legal battle when an Orange County Superior Court judge vacated his second-degree murder conviction from the mid-1990s, his attorney said Wednesday.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Sheila Hanson ruled Monday in favor of Martinez in his bid to have his murder conviction tossed based on a new state law that redefined murder.

Martinez was convicted in the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Ricky Michaels of Placentia in March 1994 based on a legal theory at the time that any defendant involved in a murder would face the same charge as the killer. Lawmakers have changed the law to require more culpability on behalf of a co-defendant such as knowledge of the killer’s intent and some sort of direct involvement in helping the killer.

Martinez’s attorney, Orly Ahrony, has been working on Martinez’s habeas case for the past 10 years. But the new law gave her attempts to exonerate Martinez new life.

“For me to get to this point and it come to fruition was absolutely incredible,” Ahrony told City News Service. “I’m very happy for him because he truly didn’t do anything.”

Martinez and his friends got into a dispute during a pickup basketball game in which one teen said something insulting to another one of the boys, Ahrony said. The group decided to get together later to try to smooth things over when a series of brawls broke out and Juan Villanueva pulled out a knife and stabbed Michaels, Ahrony said.

“It was literally some type of `yo mama’ joke,” that began the dispute, she said. “And when the apology went sour Rene Castro, the eldest of the group at 26, threw the first punch and then it went into chaos and everyone broke up into mini fights.”

Martinez was standing to the side away from the fight at the time and had his back to the group when the first punch was thrown, Ahrony said.

Villanueva carried a knife with him because ha had been shot at before that and wanted to protect himself, the attorney said.

Ahrony said Villanueva’s statements about what happened that day during his parole hearings helped bolster Martinez’s defense. Villanueva was granted parole in 2016, she said.

Ahrony said that when the group got into the car to drive away from the melee that there was “stunned silence.”

“The parole board asked (Villanueva) specifically what happened when they were in the car and he said everyone was quiet and shocked and asked why did you do that?” she said. “He took responsibility for all three stabbings.”

His statements at the parole hearing bolstered the defense that Martinez and the others had no idea what Villanueva intended to do before the stabbings, Ahrony said.

Hansen vacated the murder conviction and instead found Martinez guilty of three misdemeanor counts of assault and sentenced him to 18 months in jail. Martinez had more than enough time already served behind bars to cover the sentence.

This leaves Martinez now free of all of the state court cases against him.

Martinez was charged in a case accusing him and others in the January 2017 killing of 35-year-old Robert Rios in Placentia and then a later attempted murder of Greg Munoz, who was a co-defendant in the Rios killing.

However, the case was beset by legal problems, prompting prosecutors to get an indictment from a grand jury in 2018. That indictment was thrown out for procedural errors in the presentation of evidence, so prosecutors charged Martinez and the other defendants again and were ordered to stand trial following a preliminary hearing.

But Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick Donahue granted a motion preventing prosecutors from mentioning Johnny Martinez or the conspiracy to order the hit on Rios because the judge determined that a gang expert from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department lied about his training as part of a wide-ranging evidence-booking scandal in the department.

Later, Donahue threw out the murder case against Martinez for lack of evidence.

Federal prosecutors then stepped in last year with a racketeering case alleging murder, attempted murder, drug dealing and weapons charges.

Local authorities say Martinez ascended to power following the 2018 death of Peter Ojeda in prison, where he was serving a 15-year sentence. Like Ojeda, Martinez is accused of running the gang from jail and prison.

Kevin Trejo, James Mendez and Mike Escobar were the first to go on trial in the RICO case and were convicted this year of killing a Costa Mesa- based drug dealer in Orange, allegedly at the best of Martinez, who is awaiting trial in the federal case.

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