4 Latino Gang Members Are Convicted of Anti-Black Plot

The verdicts in a downtown federal courtroom marked the first time a street gang had been convicted of breaking federal hate crime laws, traditionally employed against white supremacist groups like skinheads and the Ku Klux Klan.

"I'm glad the truth is out," said Luisa Prudhomme, whose 21-year-old son, Anthony, was killed when Avenues members allegedly kicked open his door and shot him in the head as he lay on a futon.

"This wasn't just regular gang activity as usual," she said. "This was hate crime. They promoted hatred and racism and ignorance."

The four defendants -- Gilbert "Lucky" Saldana, 27; Alejandro "Bird" Martinez, 28; Fernando "Sneaky" Cazares, 25; and Porfirio "Dreamer" Avila, 31 -- face life in prison without the possibility of parole for their roles in the conspiracy. Sentencing for the first three was set for Oct. 23; for Avila, the date is Nov. 20.

Defense attorneys did not return calls for comment Tuesday, but one of them said in a previous conversation that there were numerous grounds for appeal.

From the start, the defense argued that prosecutors Alex Bustamante and Bobbi Bernstein had stretched civil rights statutes and Reconstruction-era anti-slavery laws way beyond their intended purposes to bring the case under federal jurisdiction. The judge denied their motions to dismiss the indictment on this basis, but the arguments will surely come up again in appeals court.

The Avenues date back to the 1950s and get their name from the numbered avenues that traverse the hills and ravines of Highland Park. The defendants on trial were part of the Tiny Locos, younger members of a clique called Avenues 43.

The compendium of crimes laid out against the gang members blended the most chilling aspects of old-time Deep South bigotry with a modern interracial rancor that has developed -- to some extent -- in struggling pockets of urban Los Angeles.

But unlike other racial gang strife in the city, the Avenues' violence was deliberately aimed at African Americans with no gang affiliations, including women and children. The gang scrawled threats and racial epithets in graffiti on walls.