California gang members get decades in prison for murdering 19-year-old Marine
Photo by Al Seib-Pool/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
FOX NEWS - Two California gang members were sentenced to decades in prison Monday for murdering a 19-year-old U.S. Marine in 2016, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office announced.
Oscar Aguilar, 28, was sentenced to 100 years to life in prison, and Esau Rios, 31, was sentenced to 50 years to life in the first-degree murder of Lance Cpl. Carlos Segovia Lopez.
Segovia was shot and killed in South Los Angeles on Sept. 16, 2016. He was on leave from Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton and had visited his girlfriend earlier in the day.
Segovia approached Aguilar and Rios when he thought they were possibly trying to break into vehicles, investigators said. After receiving instructions from Rios, Aguilar went over to Segovia and shot him once in the head while he was sitting in his car, court testimony revealed. Segovia died three days later at California Hospital Medical Center.
"Jurors additionally found true allegations that Aguilar personally and intentionally used a handgun in the killing, a principal used a handgun in the commission of the crime, and the shooting was committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang," the DA's office said, noting that the court had discovered Aguilar also had prior felony convictions.
Aguilar had been convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with great bodily injury and felony vandalism as a juvenile in 2008, according to a felony complaint. He also had been convicted in 2011 of criminal threats, and in 2015 on a drug charge.
In June 2018, a third defendant had pleaded no contest to a count of accessory after the fact. Ricky Valente, 21, was got three years' probation under a negotiated plea agreement this past June, the district attorney's office said.
Aguilar and Rios were known gang members, according to court testimony.
Segovia was born in El Salvador and was brought to the U.S. by his mother. He had enlisted in the Marines only six months before he was killed and was assigned to the student reconnaissance training company.