Feds Unseal Indictment Against LA Gang

Los Angeles (myFOXla.com) - A clique of the 18th Street gang for years terrorized a neighborhood west of downtown and ran a campaign of violence and extortion that included the murder of a 3-week-old baby, federal prosecutors charged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

FBI agents and Los Angeles police officers arrested at least eight of those named in the racketeering indictment, officials said. Several more of the 39 members and associates of the Columbia Lil Cycos clique were already in state and federal custody.

You can watch Phil Shuman's report in the video player.


According to the 114-page indictment, gang members would tax drug dealers and street vendors operating in their territory around MacArthur Park. Refusal to do so resulted in retribution, including acts of violence.

On Sept. 15, 2007, a street vendor refused to make a payment, so several gang members and their associates shot at him, the indictment states. He survived, but a 3-week-old baby sitting in a stroller next to him was struck and killed.

Three of those named in the indictment are also accused of the July 2001 murder of Jose Barajas, 22, whom gang members allegedly mistook for a rival.

The indictment also charged criminal defense attorney Isaac Guillen, 48, of West Covina, with laundering illegal proceeds on behalf of the Mexican Mafia, a prison-based gang that often controls the activities of Latino street gangs in California. A secretary at his office said he was arrested Tuesday morning and she had no further comment. The secretary did not want to identify herself.

Federal racketeering indictments are a popular law enforcement tool frequently used to take down gangs in the region.

All of those charged in the indictment face a potential maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Those alleged to have been involved in the killing of Barajas and the baby could face the death penalty.