Texas Mexican Mafia Member Sentenced to Federal Prison

United States Attorney Robert Pitman announced that in Del Rio this morning, 24-year-old Texas Mexican Mafia member Jesse Joe Oranday, of Hondo, Texas, was sentenced to 300 months in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release and fined $5,000 for his role in various federal racketeering offenses committed in Uvalde, Eagle Pass, Del Rio and the surrounding area including aiding and abetting in the murder of Jose Damian Garza in Hondo, Texas, on July 19, 2008.

In July 2010, Oranday pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) statute. Oranday is the 10th of 12 defendants convicted in this RICO conspiracy to be sentenced. Prison sentences handed down thus far in this case range from 84 to 300 months. The remaining two defendants—23-year-old Javier “Javi” Guerrero of Uvalde, Texas, and 26-year-old Victor Esquivel of Eagle Pass, Texas—are scheduled to be sentenced on April 12, 2012, before U.S. District Judge Alia Moses in Del Rio. Guerrero and Esquivel both face mandatory life imprisonment without parole after a jury convicted them in July of last year of violating the RICO statute. Guerrero, who held a leadership position in the criminal organization, was also convicted of substantive charges of conspiracy and violent crime in aid of racketeering for the murders of Garza and Christopher Mendez in Concan, Texas, on December 6, 2006. Esquivel was also convicted of conspiracy and violent crime in aid of racketeering for the murder of Garza.

All 12 defendants conspired to conduct the affairs of the Texas Mexican Mafia through a pattern of racketeering activity, which included murder, solicitation of murder, drug trafficking, and extortion. The extortion took the form of coercive collection of a 10 percent drug tax, also known as “the dime,” from drug distributors known to the members of the criminal enterprise. Collection was enforced by robbery, serious bodily injury, or other acts of violence, including death.

The Texas Mexican Mafia was formed in the early 1980’s by inmates in the Texas prison system. Over the years, the gang has expanded its efforts to promote widespread criminal activity through extortion, narcotics trafficking, and violent crime. Also known as “La Eme” or “Mexikanemi,” the organization has been the subject of numerous federal indictments in the Western District of Texas since 1991. This investigation, however, is the first to directly target the gang’s machinery operating along the Texas–Mexico international border in the cities of Eagle Pass, Del Rio, Crystal City, Carrizo Springs, Uvalde, Sabinal and Hondo.

This case resulted from a joint investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI), and the Texas Department of Public Safety–Criminal Investigations Division, with assistance from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Hondo Police Department, Texas Department of Public Safety–Texas Rangers, Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde County Sheriff’s Office.