Three Bay Area Norteños, including justice reform activist, sentenced for gang-related murders

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge has handed down decades-long prison terms against three members of a Norteño subset, ending a case that revealed the double life of a young man who billed himself as a beacon for positive change as he plotted and carried out gang killings.

Fernando Madrigal, 25, was sentenced Thursday to 33 years in prison for involvement in two murders, including a 15-year-old boy shot for nothing more than perceived gang membership, and a relative of Madrigal’s by marriage whose body was dumped in the Oakland hills. Madrigal, a justice reform advocate until his arrest in August 2020, hugged the 15-year-old boy’s mother at an anti-violence rally just weeks after killing him, an act prosecutors highlighted as an example of Madrigal’s ability to simply move on after committing heinous acts.

Two others, Alvaro “G-Boy” Reina-Cordero, and Oscar “Cutty” Guadron-Diaz, 24, were sentenced to 26 and 21 years respectively for involvement in a double-shooting of respectively, for involvement in a January 2018 San Francisco shooting of two people. Reina-Cordero, believing that 20-year-old Duby Ortiz-Guardado was a rival Sureño member, shot him and a female companion. Ortiz-Guardado was killed and the woman he was with somehow survived a gunshot wound to the back of the head, which travelled through her jaw and avoided injury to her brain.

Of the three, Madrigal gained the most notoriety when his dual-activism and participation in violent crimes came to light. San Francisco Supervisor Hillary Ronen publicly apologized for writing a support letter for Madrigal, which she penned before he was charged with murder.

After pleading guilty to killing both victims earlier this year, Madrigal gave an interview to the San Francisco Chronicle in which he professed, “I can’t wait to improve, change my way of thinking, and humble myself.” Weeks later, prosecutors say he attempted to extort $10,000 from someone by impersonating his then-attorney. In August, he and two other Santa Rita Jail inmates allegedly used homemade knives to stab another person, then gave each other a “fist bump” after the attack, prosecutors said in court records.

“In short, there seems to be an ongoing disconnect between what Madrigal says and what he actually does,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Leif Dautch said in a sentencing memo. “Any statement by Madrigal at his sentencing should be viewed through that lens.”

Yet not everyone is ready to give up on the young man. C. Jason Bell, the executive director of San Francisco State University’s Project Rebound, penned a support letter for Madrigal using letterhead from the organization, which assists formerly incarcerated people to graduate college.

“I strongly believe that Mr. Madrigal will evolve beyond his worst mistakes,” Bell wrote.

Madrigal’s two murders appeared premeditated. On July 12, 2018, he shot and killed Luis Garcia, a relative by marriage, after arranging to buy marijuana from him. The two met up near Candlestick Park. Prosecutors described in specific detail what transpired next, suggesting someone who was present during the shooting described it to authorities, saying that Madrigal shot Garcia in the back of the head after Garcia realized he was being robbed and reached for his own gun.

Madrigal and an unnamed cohort then drove Garcia’s body to the Oakland Hills and left it to be discovered 18 months later. Garcia’s blood was later found in the SUV where he was killed, and Madrigal told his mother in a jail call that he “hoped” a bloody fingerprint found on Garcia’s discarded phone would not be linked back to him, prosecutors said in court papers.

Then, on July 8, 2019, Madrigal shot and killed 15-year-old Day’von Hann, a crime prosecutors say was motivated by Day’von’s “skin color,” which led Madrigal to assume he was a member of a rival gang based in Army Street. Day’von, who was Black, was not affiliated with any gang, but Madrigal had been patrolling the area in search of a victim to avenge the death of his friend, Miguel “Lil Panch” Alvarez, allegedly shot and killed by a member of the Army Street gang.

Madrigal’s lawyers applauded him for taking responsibility for both killings.

“He is remorseful for what he has done, and he is trying to redeem himself,” the defense attorneys said in a sentencing memo.

Attorneys for both Reina-Cordero and Guadron-Diaz noted that their crimes were committed when both men were still in their teens. Reina-Cordero’s lawyer talked about the tragedy of his client fleeing MS-13’s violence in El Salvador, only to become involved in a gang in the United States. After Reina-Cordero became a father, he “shifted his priorities from being out in the streets to working and being a present and active figure in the lives of his children,” his attorney added.

Guadron-Diaz’s lawyers wrote in a sentencing memo that out of the three, he was the least culpable.

“Simply put, he did not shoot anyone and his role in the awful events of Jan. 23, 2018 was that of an aider and abettor and get-away driver,” the attorneys wrote. “His gang involvement, including his disturbing possession of deadly weapons and ammunition is reprehensible and worthy of punishment, but he is deserving of the lowest sentence meted out to the three defendants.”

After Madrigal was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William Orrick on Thursday, members of Madrigal’s and Day’von’s families fought outside the courtroom until security officers and U.S. Marshals broke it up, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.