MEXICAN MAFIA FEDERAL TRIAL TO BEGIN IN L.A.

Byline: Janet Gilmore Daily News Staff Writer

Opening statements are scheduled to begin today in a case against alleged members of the Mexican Mafia, which authorities say has exerted control over other Latino gangs, both on the streets and in state prisons across Southern California.

As the group has attempted to widen its influence in recent years, federal officials are prosecuting those they call key members on charges of running a criminal enterprise.

Twenty-two people were originally charged in the case, and 12 defendants are expected to go to trial today on charges of racketeering in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

Some of them are charged with conspiracy to commit extortion, commit murder and conspiracy to distribute narcotics.

``This indictment will significantly disable one of California's most violent gangs,'' Nora Manella, the local U.S. Attorney, said during a news conference last year.

Court documents filed by federal prosecutors describe an organization in which cowardice, perceived disrespect or simple failure to obey the organization's tenets can lead to murder.

Prosecutors expect the trial to last up to five months, with 80 to 100 witnesses.

Authorities say the case will rely on informants, wiretaps of jailhouse conversations and numerous secret videotapes of the organization's private meetings.

The Mexican Mafia, also known as ``Eme,'' for the Spanish pronunciation of the letter ``M,'' is believed to have been formed in the late 1950s in a state prison in Tracy.

According to court documents filed by prosecutors, the organization was formed to control Latino inmates' illegal activities, including drug dealing, gambling and extortion.

During the early 1990s, prosecutors allege, the group sought to widen its influence and fatten its coffers by ``taxing'' Latino drug-dealing street gangs in Southern California. In return, Eme would offer protection and assistance with intergang disputes.

Local law enforcement officials have credited the Mexican Mafia with a drop in drive-by shootings in recent years, saying that the syndicate believed that errant shootings were drawing too much heat from law enforcement.

Officials said the Mexican Mafia called a halt to such shootings, but continued to give the ``green light'' to close-range shootings and knifings of those who failed to obey the organization's rules.

Nine defendants have already accepted plea agreements, one awaits a separate trial, and 12 more are expected to sit at the defense table when the trial begins today.

Bernard Rosen, attorney for defendant Benjamin Peters, said his 55-year-old client denies all the allegations and plans to mount ``a vigorous defense.''

Peters is already serving a state prison sentence for murder. Many of the defendants were already in custody, or in and out of state custody at the time of their arrests in this case.

In the state prison system the defendants have an elaborate inmate-to-inmate communications network that transcends prison walls, according to the court documents.

But the federal prison system remains an institution this regional group has not mastered, authorities say.

Many of the knifings or shootings occurred while the victims were in state prison or jail. Salvador Buenrostro, accused of causing dissension within the group and being disrespectful to a founding member, was attacked with a homemade knife while seated in an attorney visiting room with two other inmates and a probation officer nearby, prosecutors said. He survived.

In other instances, like the death of an anti-gang worker and consultant in the 1992 movie ``American Me,'' the attacks occurred in the open in the Ramona Gardens housing project area in the East Los Angeles area, officials said.

The film consultant, Ana Lizarraga, was shot to death in May 1992 while leaving her driveway to attend her mother's funeral.