LOS ANGELES
A leader of a Riverside County street gang was sentenced Tuesday to nine years in federal prison for ordering the 2023 kidnapping of a woman as punishment after law enforcement seized the gang’s extortion proceeds, federal prosecutors announced.
Luis Ramirez, 49, formerly of Jurupa Valley, was sentenced to nine years in prison.
U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr. also ordered the sentence to run consecutively to Ramirez’s existing life sentence in California state prison.
Ramirez pleaded guilty in July 2025 to one count of committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering. He has been in federal custody since June 2024.
According to his plea agreement and court records, Ramirez was a leader of Westside Riva, a Jurupa Valley–based street gang that extorted local businesses by demanding so-called “taxes” for permission to operate in neighborhoods the gang claimed as its territory.
The gang also operated and supervised illegal gambling businesses and required other gambling operations within its territory to pay a share of their revenue to the gang.
To maintain his authority while incarcerated for attempted murder, Ramirez ordered the kidnapping of a woman identified in court documents as “Person 1,” prosecutors stated.
On Sept. 27, 2023, co-defendants Jose Jonathan Rubalcaba Alarcon, 23, and Gilbert Rey Martinez, 22, both of Jurupa Valley, abducted the victim and took her to a gang-controlled clothing store in Riverside.
Inside the store, the men forced the woman into a locked bathroom, where she was held for several days, authorities said.
The victim escaped on Oct. 1, 2023, after being left alone inside the store.
“At Ramirez’s direction, the defendants kidnapped and confined Person 1 in a Westside Riva–controlled store without regular access to food for four to five days,” prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “The victim was malnourished, lacked access to necessary medication, suffered physical abuse, endured emotional distress, and required hospitalization after her escape.”
Rubalcaba and Martinez have both pleaded guilty to federal charges in the case. Martinez is serving a 46-month prison sentence, while Rubalcaba is serving a 41-month sentence.