A South Los Angeles gang member will spend the rest of his life in federal prison for racketeering offenses that included the execution of a man in front of his 2-year-old son, prosecutors announced on Tuesday.
A federal jury convicted Rondale “Pueblo-Grump” Young, 31, of violating the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in relation to the murder of 23-year-old Francisco Cornelio, who had no gang affiliation and was shot point-blank in front of his child, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The Pueblo Bishop Bloods targeted Cornelio because he was of Latino descent and in rival gang territory, authorities said.
The jury also found Young guilty of conspiring to murder Cornelio, as well as the actual 2009 murder, both of which were done in furtherance of the gang’s criminal enterprise, and of witness intimidation.
Young was additionally found guilty at his 2013 trial of a firearms offense based on a co-conspirator’s use of pistol grip shotgun that resulted in murder.
In court documents filed in connection with the Monday sentencing hearing, prosecutors wrote that the “seriousness of the defendant’s offense is among the most egregious in the federal code, among the few punishable by death. The ultimate consequences of the murder that resulted from defendant’s conduct were to: rob a young wife of her husband; rob a young son of his father and of his childhood; and to further inflame racial and gang tensions in combustible South Los Angeles, thereby putting the entire community at risk.”
The federal convictions came after Young was acquitted in Los Angeles Superior Court on murder charges related to the slaying of Cornelio.
After the acquittal in state court, the FBI’s Los Angeles Metropolitan Task Force on Violent Gangs re-investigated the case, with the help of Los Angeles police, and uncovered additional evidence related to the murder and Young’s involvement with the Pueblo Bishops, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Young is the third defendant to be sentenced in the Cornelio slaying.
In a separate trial, a Los Angeles federal jury determined that Anthony “Bandit” Gabrourel was also part of the murder plot after evidence showed that he was one of two Pueblo Bishops who exited Young’s car with shotguns and fatally shot the young father.
Gabrourel was sentenced earlier this year to 40 years in federal prison. The third person convicted in relation to the murder was sentenced to five years in prison for hiding the murder weapon after the slaying.
Evidence presented at Young’s trial showed that he drove his car, which contained other armed gang members, into rival gang territory early on the morning of Aug. 2, 2009, seeking retaliation after an earlier shooting against their gang.
