Johnny Martinez has the support of pillars of the community.
American Civil Liberties Union officials, law professors, a pastor, a high school principal and two Los Angeles County Probation Department commissioners have urged a judge to grant him bail.
Except Martínez is not just any defendant. Nicknamed “Crow,” he is a member of the Mexican Mafia, federal prosecutors say, accused of ordering a series of murders that allowed him to maintain control over street gangs and prisoners in Orange County. Prosecutors say Martinez was caught on a wiretap threatening to shoot someone in the head and bragging about several murders.
Martínez was granted bail in December after his 1995 murder conviction was overturned. Charged at age 18 with the murder of a man killed during a fight, Martínez was convicted on the theory that the death was a “consequence natural and probable” to participate in the fight. Sentenced to 26 years to life in prison, Martínez spent the next three decades filing briefs, appeals and petitions as a self-taught prison attorney.
After the state Legislature raised the standard of proof required to prove murder, a judge reduced Martinez's sentence to misdemeanor assault. But Martínez, now 48, was not freed because a federal grand jury indicted him in 2022 for crimes he allegedly committed from a state prison. Prosecutors allege he obtained illegal profits from gangs, drug dealers and inmates throughout Orange County.
“Anyone who was involved in any type of criminal element, drugs, any type of fraud you could imagine, received a percentage,” Martínez's former right-hand man testified at a recent trial of a co-defendant in the federal organized crime case. .
Martínez has pleaded not guilty. His lawyers asked a magistrate to release him on bail pending his trial, scheduled for 2025. In support of their request, they submitted a dozen letters that portray Martínez as a champion of civil rights, a skilled litigator and a defender peace.
Sean Garcia-Leys, commissioner of the Los Angeles County Probation Department, said Martinez first contacted him while working with the ACLU to defend two rival gang members in Placentia against a gang injunction. Martínez persuaded them to set aside their grievances and became the “architect” of a countywide gang truce, García-Leys wrote.
“He constantly strives to improve the lives of those around him,” she said.
In an interview, García-Leys said he wrote the letter on behalf of his public trust firm, the Peace and Justice Law Center. “I definitely didn't do it in my capacity as commissioner of parole supervision.”
García-Leys said he was aware of the allegations contained in the indictment, but maintained his position that Martínez should be released on bail. The risk of letting someone out of jail must also be weighed against the harm caused by keeping them locked up, he said.
Martinez’s mother, Dolores Canales, herself a commissioner of the Probation Department, told the judge: “After everything my son has been through, you would think he would be full of anger and bitterness. But his firm belief in law and justice is what keeps him going.”
As commissioners, Canales and García-Leys are tasked with overseeing a sprawling law enforcement agency that runs the county's youth centers.
In a letter, Canales said that her son's participation in a hunger strike in 2011 over conditions at the Pelican Bay maximum security prison led her to “wake up to the harsh reality of human lives stored away, and that incarceration “It was not the solution, but a growing problem.”
Canales did not respond to a request for comment.
Court records show Martinez received an award for “leadership development” last year from Orange County Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who wrote, “I congratulate you for your advocacy and service to our community!”
In a statement, Sarmiento said he supports programs that help “justice-affected individuals” change their lives. Although the “vast majority” do not commit new crimes, he said, “unfortunately, we know that not everyone who participates in such efforts will be successful.”
Academics, nonprofit leaders, a psychiatrist and a high school principal urged the judge to see Martinez not as a threat to society but as an asset. Angélica Camacho, an assistant professor of criminal justice at San Francisco State, called Martínez a “highly ethical and principled man,” “a strong advocate for justice” and a “warm, caring individual with a friendly personal character.”
He described a profoundly different person from the one captured on a wiretap telling an Anaheim gang member who dared to interrupt him: “I have no problem, buddy, showing up at a mother's house and shooting them at point-blank range.”
In opposition to his request for bail, prosecutors presented to the court transcripts of calls Martinez allegedly made from a contraband phone that had been tapped by the FBI.
“If you ever interrupt me again,” Martinez said, according to a transcript, “your career will be over and I will have you killed on the spot, okay?” “My friend will put a gun to your head and shoot you.”
“If you think for a second that you can go against the Mexican mafia, hey, I've already put four people six feet under,” Martínez said. “If you want to be fifth, let's go.”
Although a pastor who befriended Martinez told the judge that in all his years of correspondence, he never once “suggested any affiliation with former gangs, nefarious cartels or the Mexican mafia,” prosecutors say there is no doubt about his loyalties.
If his mother was on her deathbed and one of his “brothers” asked him to do something, Martinez said in another intercepted call, “I need to answer the call of obligation, you know, because that's what I signed up for.”
Martínez is accused of ordering the robbery of a drug dealer in Placentia who was killed when he resisted the attackers. Martinez also allegedly led the beating of an inmate whose throat was slit and a frustrated punch at a man named Rick, who Martinez believed he was flirting with a female friend.
“I'm killing Rick,” Martinez told him in a text message, according to prosecutors. “Look what I do to Rick, another one bites the dust.”
Police arrested two armed men near the victim's home.
Martínez is also accused of conspiring to murder three men who worked for him.
After falling out of favor with Martinez, Gregory “Snoopy” Muñoz was beaten at Calipatria state prison, stabbed by two inmates the following week and then shot in the back after leaving prison, prosecutors say.
Another lieutenant, Michael “Shaggy” Cooper, angered Martinez by lying about his drug use and accumulating debt. “He may be a gangster,” Martinez told Cooper in a wiretapped call, “but I'm screwing with Christian too, you know? One thing the Bible teaches us, Shag, is that the truth will set you free.
After Cooper admitted to using heroin, Martinez said he did not tolerate addiction among his “workers” because “I hope they wake up in the morning and let their work be their high.”
“If you want to be part of Team Crow,” he said, “I expect the best of the best, big dog. I'm proud of who we are and, you know, it's about honor, integrity and representation to the fullest.
“I personally don't do drugs,” Martínez said.
However, Martinez's prison disciplinary record included complaints of heroin use and possession of medications used to treat opioid addiction, prosecutors say.
Cooper was stabbed 17 times by three inmates at Calipatria on Martinez's orders, prosecutors allege. A year later, Cooper was attacked again in an Orange County jail by inmates who beat him and cut his throat.
Cooper and Muñoz survived, but another of Martínez's subordinates did not. Accused of stealing money from a drug deal, Richard Villeda was lured into a car and shot, his body dumped on an Orange street with seven bullets in his head and back. The three gunmen were convicted last year of the murder.
Prosecutors say Martinez was caught on a wiretap warning an old friend not to talk to police. He raised Villeda and Muñoz. “I caught them both like it was nothing,” he said, according to a transcript.
“Now don't think for a second,” Martínez told his friend, “that I couldn't have done that to you.”
