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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 31, 2000)
Police step up hunt for killer ■The murder brought violence back to a neighborhood that has been quiet si nee the riots in 1992 By Bart Jones The Associated Press LOS ANGELES — Investigators stepped up their search Tuesday for the man who shot Police Chief Bernard C. Parks’ granddaughter to death as she pulled away from the drive-through window at a fast-food restaurant. Police did not identify the sus pect but said he apparently was not aiming for the victim, Lori Gonzalez, 20. The target was her passenger, a 20-year-old acquain tance who ducked when the shooting started Sunday night, Lt. Horace Frank said. The motive was unclear. Parks has not commented on the case, which was taken out of the hands of the local precinct Tuesday and assigned to the LAPD’s elite homicide team at headquarters downtown. While police hunted for the killer, flowers, a rag doll and writ ten tributes were placed in front of the Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits restaurant in Jefferson Park, about 10 miles south of downtown. Tom St. Julien, 43, a computer operator who lives.in the neigh borhood, placed three candles and a potted flower in front of the restaurant. He put a picture of the victim, torn from a newspaper, on the plant. “I live right around the corner and heard the shots. It scared me to death,” St. Julien said. “She was 20 years old. I’m 40. I was blessed enough to live twice as long as she did. She deserves more than she got. She’s an inno cent bystander.” St. Julien said he hears gun shots in the neighborhood about every two weeks. But this time, he said, “was too close to home.” Popeyes sits at the corner of La Brea Avenue and Jefferson Street, a busy intersection with other fast-food restaurants and a lum ber yard nearby. Just beyond it is a residential area of small single family homes with small yards. Many of the homes have bars on the windows. The area has become safer since 1992, when riots spurred by the Rodney King verdicts con sumed the neighborhood and gang violence was common. The neighborhood is in the po lice Southwest Division, where violent crime declined 23 percent from May 1997 through May 1999. The Rev. Cecil Murray, senior minister of the First AME Church of Los Angeles, said that despite the statistical improvement, vio lence is rampant in poor neigh borhoods like Jefferson Park. The Gonzalez shooting was the second killing of the weekend in the area. About 24 hours earlier, Albert Patton, 90, and his 85-year-old wife, Edna, were stabbed to death in their apartment — just two blocks from the Popeyes. City Councilor Nate Holden said he has been against the death penalty his entire career, but he was so outraged by the killings he said he “would pull the switch myself.” Juan Manuel Zepeda, 27, the manager of the Popeyes, said there hasn’t been a robbery at the restaurant in the past two years. When he started in 1989, the “restaurant was robbed three or four times a year, he said. The restaurant installed bullet-proof glass separating the kitchen from the dining room after the riots. “That’s why it came as a sur prise to us,” Zepeda said. “It’s been a long time. We haven’t seen anything like that ever since the riots. The police are taking good care of the neighborhood.” The victim’s father, Joe Gonza lez, said his daughter was study ing English at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo and was visiting her mother — the police chief’s daughter — in Los Angeles, 50 miles to the northwest. Lori Gonzalez had two jobs — she was a drug store clerk and an operator with Pacific Bell. She also taught Sunday school to sec ond- and third-graders and volun teered for two charitable trips to Mexico, where church members built homes for the poor in a vil lage outside Tijuana. “She was friendly — she was a wonderful gal, very enthusiastic, very loving,” said her pastor, Eric Nachtrieb. “She was enthusiastic about everything she did here ... and she loved the kids. I. just al ways had the impression that she was hopeful in making a differ ence to make this world a better place.” We bring the storage unit to you. **■ You pack it, we pick it up and store it. We’ll deliver it when you’re ready. ^ Perfect for the summer! 485-2115 Don’t Get Trapped In A Smalj Apartment • Free Month Rent • 1 & 2 Bedrooms • Quiet & Large • Gas Fireplace Now taking Summer & Fall Reservations • Air Conditioning • Laundry Hookups • Free Cable • Balcony/Deck McKenna Estates www.mckennaestates.com 342-5735 near Autzen Stadium Got a story idea? live us a call. Emerald 346-5511 Immigration official convicted of spying ■An acting deputy director of INS in Miami disclosed government secrets to a Cuban business contact By Catherine Wilson The Associated Press MIAMI — A U.S. immigration official was found guilty of espi onage Tuesday after getting caught in a government sting passing se cret information to a friend with ties to Cuba. Mariano Faget, 54, a naturalized U.S. citizen who came from Cuba as a teenager, showed no reaction when the federal jury convicted him of all four counts, including violating the Espionage Act. He could get five to six years in prison at sentencing Aug. 18. Faget had testified that he made a mistake when he passed classified information to his lifelong friend, a businessman. The case led to the expulsion of a top Cuban diplomat in Washington, Jose Imperatori. On its second day of delibera tions, the jury also convicted Faget of converting government proper ty — in this case, secret informa tion — to his own use, lying on a national security form by saying he had no foreign business ties and lying about his contacts with a Cuban official. Outside the courtroom, Faget’s wife, Maria, and one of his sons sobbed in each other’s arms. Faget was an acting deputy di rector of the Immigration and Nat uralization Service in Miami and had a security clearance that gave him access to confidential infor mation about Cuban defectors and dissidents. In a sting operation in February, the FBI fed Faget a phony story about a Cuban who was about to defect. The FBI then promptly caught Faget calling friend and business partner Pedro Font and telling him about the impending defection. Font has contacts in the Cuban government. Faget also had personal meet ings with Imperatori and reputed Cuban spy Luis Molina. Prosecutors relied on surveil lance tapes to prove their case. “Mariano Faget was a govern ment employee willing to betray the trust of people he was sworn to serve,” prosecutor Curtis Miner told the jury. “He disclosed classi fied information for no better pur pose than his own personal rea sons, his own personal gain.” The defense challenged the as sertion — required for a convic tion — that Faget intended to hurt the United States or help Cuba. Defense attorney Edward O’ Donnell called Faget “an honest government servant who made a mistake.” Faget was close to retirement af ter 34 years with the INS. He and Font had formed a company called America Cuba Inc. to pur sue business in Cuba if the U.S. trade embargo against the commu nist country were ever lifted. Faget testified that he tipped off his friend because Font was meet ing with a Cuban diplomat that day. Faget said he feared Font would be harmed if Cuban offi cials thought Font was involved with the defection. 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