California governor blocks parole of ex-Mexican Mafia prison gang leader
California Governor Jerry Brown blocked parole for a former leader of the Mexican Mafia prison gang who went on to become an informant for police, his office said on Friday.Rene "Boxer" Enriquez, 52, is serving three concurrent life sentences for two counts of second degree murder and a charge of assault with a deadly weapon.Brown acknowledged Enriquez's attempts to better himself while in prison - including his gang informant work for police, expert testimony at various criminal trials, and informational lectures to law enforcement organizations - but said they did not outweigh the risks."Because he is a high-profile drop-out targeted by the Mexican Mafia, Mr. Enriquez's parole poses a serious security risk to him, his family, his parole agents, and the community in which he is placed," Brown said in his decision, according to a copy published online by the Los Angeles Times. Enriquez, who joined the Mexican Mafia in 1985 while in prison for armed robbery and forcible rape, ordered a gang associate to kill a drug dealer in 1989 while he was on parole because he thought she was cheating customers, according to the governor's decision.Seven days after that killing, he carried out a hit against a Mexican Mafia member who had fallen out of favor by pumping him full of heroin before driving the man to a deserted area and shooting him in the head five times, the document said.While in Los Angeles County Jail in 1991, he and an accomplice stabbed another inmate 26 times while being held in an attorney room, the decision said. The victim survived.He was involved with the gang for nearly 20 years, during which time he stabbed other inmates, recruited and trained new members, and oversaw a violent drug-dealing crew in East Los Angeles, according to the document.The Los Angeles Times reported that he defected from the gang in 2002.