SAN FRANCISCO – Three members of La Mara Salvatrucha – also known as the “MS-13” gang – were each sentenced on Wednesday to 27 years in prison for the June 21, 2010, murder of Alexander Temaj-Castanon who was mistaken for a rival gang member, officials said.
According to court documents, Davie Jimmy Mejia-Sensente, a/k/a “Crazy” or “Loco,” 31, Carlos Mejia- Quintanilla, a/k/a “Sleepy” or “Dormido,” 25, and Luis Amilar-Zanas, a/k/a “Trucha,” 35, were all members of MS-13. MS-13 is a transnational street gang with local chapters, or “cliques,” throughout the world, including El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, and the United States, according to authorities.
MS-13 members engage in crimes such as murder, narcotics trafficking, and obstruction of justice and pose a high national threat assessment, according to the FBI.
One of the rules of the gang is to seek out and kill rival gang members.
In the San Francisco Bay Area, MS-13’s principal rival has been and remains the Norteños, gang members who have roots in Northern California and who claim allegiance to the Nuestra Familia prison gang.
According to court documents, Mejia-Sensente, Mejia-Quintanilla, and Amilar-Zanas were all MS-13 members since at least 2002, originally joining the gang in their native El Salvador.
During the late evening of June 20, 2010, the three were together on a Muni 14 Mission bus heading from San Francisco to Daly City.
Alexander Temaj-Castanon got on the bus and sat near Mejia-Sensente, Mejia-Quintanilla, and Amilar-Zanas, and the three thought that Temaj-Castanon looked like a Norteño gang member.
As a result, they decided to kill him.
This is what happened, according to officials:
- Amilar-Zanas left a backpack containing a loaded gun for Mejia-Sensente and Mejia-Quintanilla to use, and then exited the bus.
- When the bus stopped on Mission Street in Daly City, Mejia-Sensente and Mejia-Quintanilla exited along with the victim.
- Mejia-Sensente was carrying the backpack with the gun, and after waiting until no one else was around, Mejia-Quintanilla took the gun from the backpack and shot Temaj-Castanon at least once, knocking Temaj-Castanon to the street.
- Mejia-Sensente then took the gun from Mejia-Quintanilla and shot Temaj-Castanon again. Temaj-Castanon died from his gunshot wounds. He was not affiliated with any gang.
It was because Temaj-Castanon, a cook at Baby Blues BBQ in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, looked like a Norteno member that the three killers targeted him on a 14-Mission bus to Daly City as he was riding home from work, according to a television report by KTVU.
All three of the defendants plead guilty to conspiring to conduct the affairs of MS-13 through a pattern of racketeering, which included murder, as well as to using a firearm during relation to the racketeering conspiracy, causing the murder of Alexander Temaj-Castanon.
The investigation of this murder was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations and the Daly City Police