A 24-year-old man pleaded guilty Monday to murder in the gang-related shooting of another 24-year-old man in Placentia two days before Christmas Day 2012.
Daniel Nestor also pleaded guilty to conspiracy and participating in criminal street gang activity, according to court records. He was scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 6.
Jorge Valdez, a Placentia resident who police say had no gang affiliation, was walking with two others in the north alley of the 600 block of Center Street just after midnight Dec. 23, 2012, when Nestor, Ignacio David Morales and Luis Ramon Llanes drove up in a car and asked him, “Where are you from,” a common ploy of gang members that police call a “gang hit up,” Placentia Police Department Detective Jason Reger said.
Valdez said he wasn’t from anywhere, and when they again asked him the question he said he was from La Jolla. That’s when shots rang out and he was killed, Reger said.
The guilty plea comes nearly a year after two co-defendants admitted their involvement in the shooting.
Morales, 25, and Llanes, 29, pleaded guilty July 14, 2017, to voluntary manslaughter and admitted a sentencing enhancement for gang activity as part of a plea deal that led to the dismissal of murder charges. They were sentenced to 13 years in prison.
Morales had no prior felony convictions, his attorney, Jacqueline Goodman, said last year.
Llanes’ attorney, Rodger Carey, said “it was a defensible case,” but the prosecutor, Israel Claustro, made an offer that was preferable to gambling on a trial and receiving a life sentence.
There was no immediate response to an email sent to Claustro after regular business hours.
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