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Five years after Lodi shooting, murder suspect's trial begins

STOCKTON — Witnesses have grown up, buildings have changed colors and memories have faded since the night of Oct. 24, 2000, when Johnny Moreno was gunned down in east Lodi that evening, and a suspect was later convicted.

Mario Angulo

The case, however, wasn't over. Now, more than five years later, a second suspect's trial started Wednesday.

Mario Angulo, now 26, fled to Mexico shortly after he drove the getaway car that evening. Prosecutors and the defense agree about many of the details in the case, and both sides know that Angulo faces a possible life sentence in prison if convicted of all charges against him.

The difference, attorneys told a San Joaquin County jury during their opening statements Wednesday morning, is whether Angulo is guilty of murder.

"This case is about gang violence, gang retaliation, gang murder," Deputy District Attorney Ron Freitas told the jury as he picked up a handgun with an evidence tag attached to it. "It's about the defendant, Mario Angulo, who used this pistol, a .22-caliber Browning."

The way Freitas sees it, the case is a simply a matter of murder carried out by a man who had joined a street gang at the age of 14 and was involved in a shooting just weeks later.

But the way Stockton defense attorney Charles Slote sees it, the case is a matter of aiding and abetting, and Angulo didn't even know the other suspect was going to open fire. That suspect, Ruben Santana, is serving 25 years to life in prison, though the jury was not told of his conviction.

The fatal shooting happened after Santana and Moreno, both members of rival Hispanic gangs, got into a confrontation. Santana fired shots with a handgun Angulo had given him a few weeks earlier, Freitas said, but nobody was hit.

Then Angulo drove up and Santana got in his car. Slote said Angulo had no idea Santana was armed, while Freitas countered that the two both decided to find Moreno. They came across Moreno minutes later, and the prosecutor alleged that both men fired into a crowd of people at Flora and Washington streets.

Moreno, shot through the back, was pronounced dead soon after arriving at Lodi Memorial Hospital.

"He was not even facing his attackers when he was shot," Freitas said.

Slote did not argue that Angulo was driving the car that evening, and he even said his client also pulled out a gun. But where his view differs from the prosecutor's is in the surrounding events, and Angulo's intentions.

Angulo had arrived to visit friends that evening when he saw Santana, shortly after that first shooting in which Santana's shots did not hit anyone.

"Ruben (Santana) doesn't exactly tell it the way it happened. What Ruben tells (Angulo) is that he was the victim of a shooting, that he's been shot at," Slote said.

Angulo didn't want to be involved, Slote said, and was about to drive the other direction when Santana spotted Moreno. Santana pulled out a .38-caliber gun, reached across Angulo and fired shots, momentarily blinding Angulo — who then pulled out a .22-caliber gun and fired it, Slote said.

Court records show that a bullet from the .38-caliber gun killed Moreno.

Slote said Angulo had no idea Santana was going to open fire, which means he cannot be guilty of murder.

"You have to know that someone is going to commit a crime. You have to know there's an intent to join up voluntarily to participate in that crime," he told the jury shortly before prosecutors began calling witnesses.

The trial, being held in Judge Richard Mallett's courtroom, will likely last about two weeks.

Angulo faces a maximum sentence of life in prison; he was eligible for the death penalty but prosecutors chose not to seek it.

Contact reporter Layla Bohm at layla@lodinews.com.

First published: Thursday, May 11, 2006