Adan Rodriguez Leon. Booking photo: Santa Ana Police Department
A 34-year-old man who handled a dispute with his sister’s boyfriend by gunning him down on a sidewalk in Santa Ana before fleeing to Mexico was sentenced Friday to 50 years to life in prison.
Adan Rodriguez Leon was convicted of first-degree murder Feb. 9 for killing 39-year-old Paul Guzman on the afternoon of April 8, 2015.
“Adan will have to sit in jail, hopefully for the rest of his life, so he can feel the pain I feel,” Guzman’s mother, Valerie, said. “I hope he rots in jail so he can feel some sort of remorse for what he’s done to his mother, his kid, and me.”
Guzman’s sister, Amanda, broke down several times, as she told Orange County Superior Court Judge Cheri Pham how her brother’s death affected her.
“Paul was my big brother and my friend and now he’s gone,” she said, sobbing. “He was taken from me and my family in a selfish manner.”
She noted that as a child she would play with the defendant on the block. She said her brother’s artistic talent inspired her to take up drawing.
“I never told him that and now I never will be able to,” Amanda Guzman said.
The defendant’s family told the judge there was another side to Leon. His sister, Veronica Maldonado, said the defendant was a “family man,” who, despite being the younger sibling, would “watch out for me, take care of me, advise me.”
Leon’s mother-in-law, Judy Ruiz, said, “I could not ask for a better son-in-law. He has a very good heart.”
Leon’s wife, Lorainne, said, “I want (the defendant) to know I will stand by him no matter what. His daughter will miss him as much as I will.”
The defendant told the judge, “I’m not here to justify my actions. I just want to apologize to Paul’s mother.”
Guzman was shot after the defendant confronted him about partying in his sisters’ parents’ home while they were away and taking Leon’s tools, Senior Deputy District Attorney Keith Burke said..
When Leon was told his tools had been taken, he went to Guzman’s residence, where his sister was staying, to confront them, Burke said.
First he spoke with his sister and then asked to talk to Guzman, the prosecutor said.
The two walked a short distance down the sidewalk before Guzman stopped and put down the beer he had been drinking and Leon opened fire with a .22- caliber revolver, hitting the victim with four bullets, Burke said.
Leon ran away, ditched his jacket with the gun in a trash can and then got a worker to drive him the rest of the way home in his truck before he took off for Mexico, Burke said.
Leon, his sister, Lorena Reynero, and Guzman grew up the same neighborhood and all knew each other, Burke said. All three had another thing in common — drug abuse, the prosecutor said.
Reynero “was not in good graces” with her parents and wasn’t welcome in their home. But shortly before the shooting, she and Guzman broke into her parents’ home, where they stayed for a short time and swiped Leon’s tools to hock to “support their drug habit,” Burke said.
Video surveillance footage from a home on the 1100 block of Chestnut Avenue shows the shooting, Burke said.
The defendant made it to Mexico but was back in the United States within a few days, the prosecutor said.
Leon’s attorney, Jacob DeGrave, acknowledged his client “shot Mr. Guzman, but it was done in self-defense and he is not guilty of murder.”
–City News Service
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