LAKE COUNTY — Lake County Superior Court Judge Richard C. Martin sentenced Ukiah resident Octavio Juan Sanchez, 21, Friday to the upper term of four years in prison for the July 4, 2007 gang-related assault on a 14-year-old male victim, according to prosecutor Richard Hinchcliff.
Sanchez, a documented Norteno, pleaded guilty to felony charge of participating in a criminal street gang and promoting criminal conduct by criminal gang members and to a felony charge of assault likely to cause great bodily injury, according to a Friday Lake County District Attorney”s Office press release.
Sanchez was one of five or six men who attacked the teen, according to previous Lakeport Police Department reports. The young man was hit over the head with a rock in the attack, and died three days later of injuries he suffered in an unrelated car accident in Kelseyville, as the Record-Bee reported July 11, 2007.
The victim was with his brother, a self-admitted member of the Lake County Sureno gang Angelino Heights, and two others when several Norteno gang members attacked him. Sanchez and other gang members were in a residence near the Safeway shopping center on Eleventh Street in Lakeport when they saw the victims walking out of Perko”s restaurant, according to the release.
The four were wearing “blue clothing commonly worn by Sureno gang members,” according to the release. According to a witness in the Lakeport residence, the Norteno gang members started talking about the “scraps” coming out of Perko”s, using a derogatory term Nortenos use to describe Surenos, according to the release.
Sanchez was a documented Norteno gang member and was previously convicted of gang-related assault in Mendocino County, according to the release. Sanchez was a member of a known Mendocino and Sonoma County gang affiliated with the Nortenos, according to the release.
Sanchez”s defense attorney J. David Markham asked the court for a lesser sentence, alleging that Sanchez was not participating in gang activity. Martin cited Sanchez”s criminal record of theft, drug- and gang-related crimes in the sentencing.
Contact Tiffany Revelle at trevelle@record-bee.com.
