In the mountains above Los Angeles, the temptier presses a gun against Juan’s stomach and calls FaceTime before handing him the phone.
Testifying without revealing his last name at a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles County, Juan said he recognized his neighbor’s face on screen on the morning of February last year.
Juan said he considered his friend Francisco Javier Perez as his neighbor. What he didn’t know was that his neighbor was living a secret life. Perez was a high-level drug trafficker with ties to an unknown Mexican drug cartel, prosecutors wrote in court documents.
Prosecutors accused Juan of kidnapping, stabbing, shooting and pushing him off a cliff after Perez ordered him to kill him. However, it is said that Perez was hired. The job he hired – allowing Juan to run away and testify about what appears to be his final moments.
Perez’s lawyer, Jennifer Gitlin, said she had never seen evidence that her client was affiliated with the cartel. He pleaded not guilty to accusations of attempted murder, lure, robbery, drug trafficking and conspiracy to commit murder.
The lawsuit against Perez, accused of adjusting arising from Tijuana, is a rare example of extreme cartel violence in US soil, according to authorities.
“I’ve been doing this for quite some time,” Superior Court Judge Hayden Zackie said at the end of Wednesday’s hearing. “I’ve never seen a case like this. It’s a very high level of cartel-like behavior.”
Juan testified that he was accused of losing a large amount of drugs. However, he had not surpassed Perez in the deal. He said he wasn’t even involved in the drug trade. It started with a common favor.
Silmer gas stations say prosecutors have invited Francisco Perez, Juan Vernal and Ramon Terriquez to a man accused of losing a large amount of drugs.
(Eric Sayer/Because of the era)
Juan introduced Perez to a friend. My friend ran the business handling department for car documents and smog checks. Perez wanted his Honda Accord to be registered and smog certified. While working in the car, Juan’s friend finds a duffel bag full of drugs and panics. He abandoned the Honda on the side of the road and called the police anonymously.
The call moved a series of events: a rendezvous at Home Depot for masks and gloves. Appointment at a gas station in Sylmer. Then there’s the moment in the mountains where Juan meets his neighbor.
“He said I was going to die,” recalls Juan.
**
Juan stepped into the courtroom on the fourth floor of San Fernando and settled on the witness with his cane. Testifying in Spanish, he said he was working on installing fiber optic cables on the morning of February 21, 2024, when he stopped to buy some tamale in Schirmer.
He pulled the Ford Edge SUV into a gas station on Ford Ford Street. While he waited for his Tamales, two men approached from either side. One thrusts a gun into his stomach. If he runs, they warn Juan, they will kill him on the spot.
Prosecutors blocked Juan’s Ford and played surveillance footage showing the silver SUV and black sedan being pulled into a gas station. “They looked like a group of special forces,” Zackie said in his ruling.
The two men pushed Juan into the back seat of the car. In court, Juan identified Juan Vernal, a 34-year-old Tijuana resident, and one behind the wheel. He pleaded not guilty to accusations of inducing, robbery, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
As Bernal ran towards the mountains, Juan testified that the man in the back seat had beaten him and threatened to kill him. One jabed a gun into his stomach. The other took Juan’s pocket knife and stabbed him in the leg, he said.
Bernal stopped at the horse ranch. The silver SUV and black sedan followed them. He heard men talk about digging holes. The trunk of the SUV has opened. Juan said he saw the shovel and the Picax.
One of the men took Juan’s pocket knife. He sliced Juan’s palm and thrusts a blade under his fingernail. Juan said the man said he “bury” him.
At that moment, fans said the passing driver blew his corner away. The man was scared and returned to the car. As they ran further into the mountains, the man crossed his cheek and turned the knife to the right to the right. He is still hurt.
The three caravans were suspended by vote. Vernal handed the phone to Juan. It was Perez, he testified.
**
The prosecutor asked Juan to identify Perez in court. He hesitated before pointing to the man with a weathered look on his face across the court.
“Barba Blanca,” he said. White beard.
Juan knew Perez, a stubborn man with dark curly hair and bearded beard, like “paco” mid-human.
Perez, 62, lived at one door from Juan in Bell Gardens. Perez split his time between the southeastern Los Angeles County, where his wife lived, and the city of Tijuana, Fan said.
He kept it unremarkable, as prosecutors claimed he was seeking bail if Perez was part of a drug cartel. At least in Bell Gardens, he lived in a rundown apartment. He drove a Honda Accord and a Chevrolet Silverado.
However, deputies from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department considered Perez the leading drug trafficker. The aide said he took Perez into custody at Bell Gardens in 2022, searching for his car and grabbed a duffel bag with 13 kilograms of methane and 10,000 counterfeit fentanyl pills. It is unclear why he didn’t own the medicine at the time.
Juan testified that he had no idea his neighbor was involved in the drug trade. Perez was kind to him, he said, lending him money when he was short on rent.
They were heartfelt to each other, but they didn’t socialise much, Juan said. Sometimes they will have a khan asada. Perez came to Juan’s house party “probably once or twice.”
It was one of those parties that Juan introduced Perez to his friend Walter. Juan testified that he had no idea about Walter’s last name. Walter’s business registered the car with the DMV and certified smog checks.
Walter agreed to process the documents for Perez’s agreement. After he gets his car, he is called Juan and panics after finding drugs. “I told Walter, ‘Let me take your car to the police,'” Juan recalled. “Don’t get involved in the issue.”
The Whittier Police Department received an anonymous call warning a car on Santa Fe Springs Road, detectives testified. The officer looked inside the Silver Honda Accord. Two large Ziploc bags were on the front seats. The duffel bag was on the floorboard. They appeared to be full of methamphetamine. The officer locked the car inside.
Juan called his neighbor and broadcasted what Walter said. Infuriated, Perez says that Juan is owing him money. If he didn’t pay, Juan recalled warning him, “I had no intention of lasting for two or three days.”
Juan said Perez wasn’t just going to kill him. He testified that Perez’s wife got on the phone and threatened her daughter. “They said they were going to cut her apart and I was going to eat her,” he recalls.
**
In the mountains, Juan said Perez had ordered the other man in the car at Faceti Time.
Vernal went down the road again. Juan fought for his life. He wrestled with the man to his right for the gun. The man to his left grabbed him, and Juan bit his hand. The gun-holding man shot Juan behind him and fired two more shots into the abdomen.
“I was exhausted,” Juan testified. “I said, ‘I’m not going to fight anymore. I’m going to pretend I’m dead.’ He closed his eyes and tried not to breathe.
They stopped. Juan heard the man talking about burning cars. One of the men said they should shoot Juan in their head. “I’ll leave it as is,” another said. “F— is already dead.”
The man tilted Ford towards the valley where Juan had entered. It tumbled down the cliff and began to rest in the brush bushes. Juan raw and lifted himself up to Little Tujunga Canyon Road.
He spent the next 17 days with broken, broken in and out of surgery, broken intestine, lung clots and three gunshot wounds, he testified. His left leg is permanently injured, he said, and it’s still painful to walk.
Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department issued an alert for wanted vehicle for the black Volkswagen Passat used in Aidation. They learn that US Border Patrol agents stopped on the 5th highway in San Clemente at 9:45am when Juan was lured.
Three men were inside: Bernal, Lamontellíquez and Alejandro Medina. They told agents they were illegally American Mexican citizens and agreed to be deported soon. Guillermo de la Riva, LAPD Robbery and Fusion Bureau, testified.
Before sending the man to Mexico, the agent looked up Terriquez’s phone. It included photos taken at Commerce’s Home Depot the night before the invitation, De La Riva said. The detective obtained surveillance footage from the store. The footage showed Terriques buying gloves and a hooded mask for the painter to use. According to the footage, Bernal and Perez were also at Home Depot.
De La Riva arrested Terriquez, 30, and Bernal in July 2024. Perez was already in custody.
Terriquez claimed to police simply for driving the Volkswagen used in the trickery. Dela Riva testified that Terriquez thought he was going to abduct Juan, rather than killing him.
Bernal also denied any conspiracy to kill Juan. He said someone issued a $70,000 “contract” to collect the $200,000 that Juan owed to an unknown party, de la Riva testified.
After two days of testimony, lawyers for Perez, Bernal and Terriquez asked the judge to dismiss the charges due to lack of evidence. Terriquez’s lawyer, who pleaded not guilty, pointed out that his client was not in the car where Juan was stabbed and shot. “At best, Terriquez played a passive role in this nopped plot,” lawyer Joel Garcia told Zackie.
Sub-ward. Atty. Jack Garden said there were signs that the plan was a murder all along. They bought masks but did not wear them, Garden said, “Because Juan had not returned and would not become an eyewitness.”
The SUV also had tools. “You don’t have a shovel on the invitation,” Garden said.
Zackie agrees and finds there is sufficient evidence to bring the defendant to trial on charges of intrigue, robbery, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
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