LONG BEACH – A 15-year-old boy accused of killing another teen in retaliation for his little brother's murder last year was charged as an adult Thursday.
Eric Benitez and his alleged accomplice, 14-year-old Jason Trejo, will be tried as adults for the Jan. 6 shooting death of Florentino Rivera, 16.
Benitez was ordered held on $6 million bail and Trejo's bail was set at $5 million Thursday, said Shiara M. Davila, a Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office spokeswoman.
Benitez and Trejo's arraignment is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. in Department J of the Long Beach Superior Court today, Davila said.
The two teens were arrested for Rivera's slaying on Jan. 13 and have remained in custody at a juvenile detention center as authorities weighed whether to try the boys as adults for the killing.
Sources close to the investigation and friends of the boys said Benitez was so incensed by the stabbing death of his 13-year-old brother, Jose Cano, last June that he turned on Cano's fellow gang members.
A total of seven youths were arrested for Cano's death last summer, including the mother of one of the suspects, Eva Daley.
One of those youths, Heriberto Garcia, 16, is being tried as an adult along with Daley. The pair is due in court for their preliminary hearing on March 27 and the six other juveniles also charged in the slaying are still awaiting hearings to determine whether they will be charged as adults, attorneys said.
In the January killing of Rivera, his family insists he was not a gang member and police have said repeatedly there is no documented proof that he was in a gang.
Those who live in the neighborhood where the boys lived said Rivera was friends with members of Cano's gang and may have been caught up in Benitez's alleged quest for vengeance. When Cano's gang failed to do anything about his June 25 murder at 14th Street Park, either at the time of the attack or later on, Benitez turned on them, sources said.
The real target was an 18-year-old member of the East Side Longos who was with Rivera when the 16-year-old Cabrillo High freshman was gunned down Jan. 6 while riding his scooter near 15th Street and Cedar Avenue en route to visit his sick mother, she and another anonymous source told the Press-Telegram.
Police have said they are investigating the allegations of a connection between the boys' deaths and confirmed the killing was gang-related, identifying Benitez and Trejo as known gang members at the time of their arrests.
Although there is no documented proof that Rivera was a gang member the investigation was deemed gang-related based on the suspects, she said.