SANTA ANA, Calif.—A 36-year-old felon was sentenced Oct. 21 to life in prison without the possibility of parole for gunning down a father working in his food truck on Father’s Day as the defendant was aiming at a gang rival in Santa Ana.
Jose De Jesus Gomez-Ochoa was convicted in March of murder with a special-circumstances allegation of gang activity and sentencing enhancements for the discharge of a gun causing death. He was also convicted of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Menninger tacked on 25 years to life to the sentence.
Ochoa has two prior strike convictions for drug dealing in 2011 and possession of a firearm by a felon in 2012.
He was convicted of killing 52-year-old Eliu Armando Gramajo on June 19, 2016.
In a sentencing brief, Senior Deputy District Attorney Janine Madera said the defendant intentionally went into a gang neighborhood with a fully loaded firearm and shot five times down a residential street.
“He shot at a food truck, knowing that not only was he shooting at the intended target, but also not knowing and caring that someone was working inside and that any number of people could have been hurt,” Madera said.
Ochoa “not only killed the victim, but also endangered every man, woman, and child who lived or happened to be on that street that day,” Madera wrote. “The defendant made all of these violent choices at 30 years old, being married with children, so he clearly was old enough to understand the gravity of his actions.”
Just after 7 p.m. that day, Gramajo, a father of three, was working in his food truck at 1702 Evergreen Street when the defendant opened fire on Vladimir Silva, but instead wounded Gramajo, Madera said in her opening statement.
“He was working on Father’s Day to support his family,” Madera said.
The food truck had been there for several years on the border of “two warring gangs in Santa Ana,” Madera said.
“Evergreen was at the heart of a gang dispute,” she added.
Gramajo’s food truck was tagged with graffiti of a rival gang of the defendant’s, Madera said.
Surveillance video from a laundry business was played for jurors showing Ochoa getting out of his Chevrolet pickup, “gun in hand,” and dashing down an alley toward Evergreen with another man standing by the vehicle as a lookout, Madera said.
Silva was known as “Danger” and associated with a rival gang of the defendant’s, Madera said. He was at the food truck to pick up a meal when Ochoa opened fire on him, Madera said.
Ochoa was arrested the following day. When he was shown stills from the surveillance video, he denied it was him or his truck, Madera said.
But during jailhouse calls to his mother and girlfriend, he made multiple incriminating comments about the evidence against him in the case and at one point, said, “I killed him, mom—he was innocent,” according to Madera.
Ochoa’s attorney, Marin G. Stapleton Jr., said in his opening statement of the trial, “This is a case about who killed Mr. Gramajo.”
He added, “It was clear that this was a tragedy. ... But this trial is about who’s responsible for it.”
Stapleton said that Ochoa “lied his way through” his “entire interview” with police but, “he admitted it was his gang that killed the victim in the case while shooting at my client.”
