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Posted on 12/04/2008 8:33:29 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO – The teenage son of former state Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and three friends, all from Sacramento, pleaded not guilty Thursday afternoon in San Diego Superior Court to charges of murder and assault with a deadly weapon.
Esteban Nuñez, Ryan Jett, Rafael Garcia and Leshanor Thomas are accused of stabbing to death a Mesa College student and injuring three others in a knife fight at San Diego State University on Oct. 4.
Judge David Szumowski set bail Thursday at $2 million for Nuñez, Garcia and Thomas, who are all 19 years old. Bail was denied for Jett, 22, because he is on probation. Jett has prior convictions for illegal possession of ammunition and misdemeanor DUI, according to prosecutors and court records.
A bail review hearing has been scheduled for next week in San Diego Superior Court, and a preliminary hearing set for March 18.
Several family members and friends appeared in court to support Nuñez, including his father. When the arraignment was finished, Nuñez's sister wiped away tears.
“They believe 100 percent in their son's innocence. They stand behind it,” said Nuñez's attorney, Brad Patton, at a news conference following the arraignment.
Prosecutors allege the close-knit group calls themselves The Hazard Crew, or THC, and each has a matching tattoo of a bio-hazard symbol.
“Basically they want to be gang members,” said Deputy District Attorney Jill DiCarlo.
Defense attorneys denied that claim.
“There are no gang connections whatsoever,” Patton said.
He said the defendants were not the only ones who had weapons during the fight and that the stabbing occurred in self-defense. One of the defendants, Jett, was stabbed, Patton said during the news conference. Garcia's attorney, Paul Pfingst, said his client has no criminal record and comes from a good family.
“He is a student and he is not a murderer,” Pfingst said.
Prosecutors said the four came to San Diego for the weekend to party but became angry when they were kicked out of a fraternity party. Hours later, they returned to the campus and sat on a wall on 55th Street, near Peterson Gym.
That's when Luis Santos, 22, and four other friends walked by. They had just left a party at a nearby apartment.
“They ended up being at the wrong place at the wrong time,” DiCarlo said. She said the suspects may have overheard Santos talking tough to some other people nearby, mentioning he had a “piece,” or a gun, in his waistband.
However, DiCarlo said Santos was not armed.
The suspects then challenged Santos to a fight, she said. Santos and his friends tried to run away and defuse the situation, but the foursome still attacked, DiCarlo said.
Santos and two others were stabbed and a third friend suffered a fractured facial bone.
The suspects quickly left town and later dumped the weapons into the Sacramento River, DiCarlo said. The foursome were connected to the slaying the next day when two girls who know both groups became suspicious and contacted detectives.
San Diego police traveled to Sacramento a week later and searched the homes of all four suspects, among them the former speaker's home.
On Tuesday, two months later, the four were arrested and brought to San Diego to face charges.
Pfingst challenged the prosecution's case: “If the case is as straightforward and simple and compelling as the prosecutor just said, why did they wait 60 days to arrest these young men? The reason is because there is another side to the facts in this case that has not been revealed.”
Probably because DiCarlo wanted an airtight case. One that Nunez couldn't help his son get away with.
s!!!"
College students carrying knives? Seems that sounds like gang activity to me. It isn’t to surprising..his Dad is a punk and so is he.
“College students carrying knives?”
And get this, “basically they want to be gang members”. Don’t most collegians want to be engineers, doctors, stockbrokers or lawyers (I discourage that one, but whatever floats your boat;)
Fruit of Affirmative Action!
Can’t wait for our first Affirmative Action” President, can you? (If that guy scored 175-180 on the LSAT, I’ll eat my hat;)
I don't know about you, but I have carried a knife in my pocket since 6th grade. Since I am 63 now, that is 52 years of never being without a knife.
Does that sound like gang activity to you? Sure doesn't sound that way to me. Didn't seem like gang activity when I was in college either.
I heard on KFI (I think it was - sorry don’t have a link) that Nunez apparently bragged “don’t worry, my dad will get me out of this.”
Here's All of ‘em-great fashion sense, and absolutely dripping with good taste and class/s;)
Yeah...looks like “grapefruits don’t fall far from the tree.”
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