Mexican Mafia Shot Caller "Pomona Mike" Lerma Found Guilty on Federal RICO, Drug & Murder Charges

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat

Four Pomona gang members and Mexican Mafia associates were found guilty by a jury today of a series of racketeering-related crimes. All the defendants have been in federal custody since 2018. 

Their transfer to federal custody only allowed for an expansion into controlling gang taxes and drug smuggling into the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in LA. They were also responsible for the murder of a federal inmate at the MDC in downtown Los Angeles in June 2020...over a drug debt. 

At the conclusion of a 20-day trial, all four Pomona-based defendants were found guilty of One count of Conspiracy to Violate the RICO Act, One count of Violent Crimes in Aid of Racketeering (VICAR) murder, and One count of First-Degree Murder within the Special Maritime and Territorial Jurisdiction of the United States.

The jury also found “Big Mike” Lerma and Jose "Swifty" Valencia Gonzalez guilty of One count of Conspiracy to Distribute Controlled Substances (methamphetamine and heroin) at the MDC Los Angeles and in the Pomona area. 

Finally, the jury found Carlos "Popeye" Gonzalez and Valencia Gonzalez guilty each of one count of being felons in possession of a firearm and ammunition. Juan “Squeaks” Sanchez was found not guilty of one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

“These defendants were key players in a criminal enterprise that committed murder, assault, and drug trafficking,” said Acting United States Attorney Joseph T. McNally.

"This case makes it clear that gang violence by Mexican Mafia members and associates has not only been directed from the streets, but also from prisons in California," said Akil Davis, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.

United States District Judge George H. Wu will schedule sentencing hearings in the coming months, at which time each defendant will face a mandatory sentence of life in federal prison.

Who is "Big Mike" from Pomona?

According to the federal indictment, from February 2012 to June 2020, Lerma controlled and extorted drug proceeds from Latino street gangs in and around Pomona, California as well as from incarcerated Latinos in Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County. 

Members of Lerma’s criminal enterprise also engaged in robberies, identity theft and fraud, drug trafficking, and other acts of violence. Lerma profited from these criminal activities when top-level female associates known as “Señoras” deposited proceeds into his prison account, court documents state.

Lerma has twice before been convicted of murder, according to parole transcripts reviewed by The Times. He joined the Pomona 12th Street 13 gang (P12) at 12 years old, dropped out of school after the 11th grade and joined the Marines, but he was kicked out after committing a murder at 18. 

“Myself, personally, I’ll tell you I was a big embarrassment to the Marine Corps,” he told the parole board.

While serving a five-year term, Lerma acknowledged that “for lack of a better phrase, I learned how to think and be a convict.” He was released in 1979, having heard from other inmates about “selling and dealing drugs, making money, fast, easy money,” he told the board, “and that’s what I decided to do.”

Michael "Big Mike" Lerma, 68, has been incarcerated since 1989, most recently in federal prison since 2018 and Pelican Bay before that. 

In 1982, Lerma had shot to death a man in Sacramento County who had robbed him of heroin and a power tool. He has ever since been serving a sentence of 15 years to life for murder.

He had his start in Pomona's 12th Street Sharkies gang at 12 years old and became a full member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang in 1995.

Prison officials classified Lerma as a member of the Mexican Mafia in 1995, but he has contested this characterization, telling the parole board, “I’ve always denied being a member of any prison gang or being involved in any prison gang.”

The indictment describes Lerma as a “full” member of the Mexican Mafia who, since at least 2012, has taxed drug dealers in Pomona and its surrounding neighborhoods under fear of assault or death.

Señoras & Secretaries

Federal prosecutors had so far secured 16 convictions in this case, including that of Cheryl Perez-Castaneda, 62, of Pomona, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence for using her power on the street as a “Señora” a high-level female associate of Lerma’s to solicit a murder and for participating in a carjacking attempt and shooting.

From February 2012 to July 2016, she engaged in the traditional and expected duties of a “Señora” collecting extortionate “taxes” from Pomona drug dealers; distributing the drug proceeds to the Mexican Mafia, including Lerma, who was incarcerated at Pelican Bay State Prison; and giving orders to others regarding the racketeering enterprise’s criminal activities.

But Perez-Castaneda also used her power as Lerma’s voice on the street to solicit the murder of a Los Angeles County Jail inmate in July 2013 in retaliation for the shooting of her son. When Perez-Castaneda learned that the victim had been stabbed, but not killed, she sought and obtained the approval of a Mexican Mafia member to have the victim placed on a “green light” list, openly marking him for murder.

In July 2013, Perez-Castaneda also participated in the attempted theft of a Mercedes-Benz owned by another inmate in LA Men's County Jail. When the car’s caretaker refused to hand over the vehicle, Juan "Squeaky" Sanchez shot him, according to court documents. Perez-Castaneda later laughed about the shooting on a recorded telephone call.

Kelly Deshannon, 43, of La Verne, is serving a prison sentence of more than 7 years for serving as a "Secretary” to Lerma and for facilitating the July 2013 armed robbery/carjacking and for extortion and distributing narcotics.

Control of MDC Los Angeles

Lerma was first indicted in federal court in 2018. He was transfered from state prison to the federal Metropolitan Detention Center, or MDC in Los Angeles.

Lerma seized control of the facility and instituted a discipline system, prosecutors said, with infractions punished, according to their severity, with verbal warnings, beatings, stabbings, a “smash out” an assault so severe the inmate must be transferred to a different unit and murder.

Lerma’s primary enforcers at the MDC were three reputed Pomona gang members: Carlos “Popeye” Gonzalez, Jose “Swifty” Valencia Gonzalez and Juan “Squeaks” Sanchez. On June 28, 2020, the three men entered the cell of an inmate who had failed to repay a drug debt and killed him on Lerma’s orders, the indictment says.

Federal Inmate Killed

In June 2020, Lerma ordered Carlos Gonzalez, Valencia Gonzalez, and Sanchez to kill a fellow inmate at the MDC Los Angeles. The trio entered the victim's cell at MDC Los Angeles stabbing and strangling him to death over failing to pay drug debts he owed to Lerma's group.

The indictment identifies the victim only by his initials "SB" but coroner records show that inmate Steve Bencom was pronounced dead from stab wounds and ligature strangulation on June 29, 2020.

Bencom, also known as "Risky Business" was a King Kobras gang member who had just been sentenced days prior to 10 years in federal prison for trafficking methamphetamine. He had pled guilty to those charges 5 months earlier.

Bencom had used a contraband cellphone to sell and distribute drugs behind bars while serving a 37-year term for robbery at Centinela State Prison in Imperial County for "Big Mike" Lerma. Lerma also had controlled drug distribution taxes, coined 'Dirty Thirds' in nearby Calipatria State Prison.

He supposedly owed Lerma a $4,500 drug debt and could not pay. The three men killed him after a last ditch effort phone call to have the debt paid hadn't worked. Bencom's cellmate Jose Martinez, said he found Bencom unresponsive on the bottom bunk in their cell. Bencom was strangled and stabbed in the heart and eye.

Martinez testified Valencia Gonzalez came to his door and told him: “Keep your mouth shut. According to Martinez, guards did not require him or Bencom to stand for two routine counts that evening. He was forced to remain in the cell overnight until Bencom’s body began to bloat, he said.

“I was hysterical,” he recalled. “I had to sleep the whole night with a dead body. My friend. It’s not normal to sleep with a dead body.”

Weeks earlier, Martinez, who owed $300 to Lerma, was weeks earlier brought to the cell of Lerma and Valencia Gonzalez who was stabbed him 12 times. Lerma ordered him to not report it to guards. Martinez, testified that he put ground coffee in his stab wounds to stop the bleeding.

Defense attorneys argued it was Martinez who killed Bencom in a drug-induced rage. “He’s a sophisticated, manipulative junkie,” Carlos Gonzalez’s attorney, Richard Novak, said of Martinez, “and you can’t believe a word he says.”

There was no DNA or fingerprint evidence tying the defendants to Bencom’s homicide. And defense lawyers pointed to the records of correctional officers who attested, in routine counts, that Bencom was alive on the day that Martinez said he was killed.

Dirty Thirds Drug Taxes

Within the walls of Calipatria State Prison in Imperial County and the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, Lerma exacted a “thirds” tax of all narcotics smuggled into and sold within the facilities, the indictment said.

When an inmate purchases drugs or other contraband inside prison, money is typically exchanged outside prison, between representatives of both the seller and the buyer. The seller will owe a tax on the sale to the Mexican Mafia member who controls the prison in which he is housed. He will typically send the tax payment to the Mexican Mafia member’s associate outside prison.

Sureño gang members smuggled drugs into the various jails and taxed the sales of methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and cannabis. They also extorted other inmates. All Latino inmates had to give the gang a percentage of what they spent on food and hygiene items in the canteen. The gang then sold this “kitty” to inmates for additional income.

One third of all of those drugs smuggled into the jails had to be turned over to a Mexican Mafia member or his shot-caller in each facility and if the gang member decided to sell his “thirds,” all other inmates had to hold off their sales til that portion had been sold.

In 2018, Operation Dirty Thirds included more than 500 law enforcement personnel who brought in 32 defendants on racketeering charges. The federal indictment named 83 people, 35 of whom were already in custody in prison or jail.

Sources DOJ, CBS News, DOJ, DOJ, LA Times, LA Times,

Categories: mexican mafia, prison gangs, southern california