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.”
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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.
No charges have been brought
against Font, a 57-year-old publi
cist in New York.
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