To those in his corner, Johnny Martinez is a brilliant, caring, jailhouse lawyer who has unfairly spent his entire adult life behind bars for a murder he did not commit.
But to those trying to keep him locked up, Martinez is the ultra-violent capo of a notorious prison gang who has extorted drug dealers and ordered hits on people who crossed him.
The two faces of Martinez — the reputed leader of Orange County’s Mexican Mafia — will be presented to a federal judge May 24 in Santa Ana at a hearing to determine whether he should be granted bail on charges that he helped mastermind two murders and six attempted homicides.
He is among 31 alleged Mexican Mafia members named in a 2022 federal racketeering indictment that includes gun and drug trafficking charges. Dubbed “Operation Night Owl,” the investigation was billed by federal authorities as a crushing blow to the Mexican Mafia’s control of Latino street gangs in Orange County.
Nevertheless, an extensive effort is underway by civil rights activists, prison reformists, friends, relatives and clergy to get Martinez, 48, released on bail on the grounds that he would not be a danger to the public or a flight risk.
The bail motion notes, “Mr. Martinez is not alleged to have personally committed any of the violent offenses” alleged in the indictment.
Veteran civil rights attorney Richard Herman is even risking $100,000 of his own money to help post the would-be bond and is offering Martinez a job at his law firm if bail is granted. Martinez would live with his fiancée and her family.
If Martinez gains his release, it would be the first time he has been free since he was a teenager.
“There’s a bunch of people willing to put their finances on the line,” said Richard Novak, one of the attorneys representing Martinez. “Everyone reaches the same conclusion: He is an amazing, intelligent, caring person who tries to help others.”
Or is he?
‘Murderous tendencies’
Prosecutors say Martinez “is adept at displaying a version of himself to others that is wholly inconsistent with his murderous tendencies and his true object of greatest devotion: the Mexican Mafia.”
So dedicated is Martinez to the gang and its criminal activities that he was heard saying on a wiretapped phone call that he would chose the Mexican Mafia over his own mother, according to a brief filed Wednesday, May 15, by federal prosecutors opposing bail.
On another phone call intercepted sometime between 2016 and 2022, Martinez is heard telling a recalcitrant member of an Anaheim street gang: ‘You wanna disrespect me, I’ll (expletive) kill you in a (expletive) heartbeat,” the brief said. “My homeboy is going to put a gun to your head and (expletive) shoot you, OK?”
Martinez, known by the moniker “Crow,” was convicted in 1994 of taking part in a brawl that ended in the stabbing death of Ricky Michaels after a pickup basketball game in Fullerton. Under the law at the time, Martinez was considered as accountable as the actual killer, under the theory that Michaels’ death was a “natural and probable consequence” of the fight.
Martinez, barely 18, was sentenced to 24 years to life in state prison.
‘Invalid convictions’
Decades later, the law has been changed, requiring that murder defendants who are not the actual killers at least be major participants acting with reckless indifference to human life. A judge in December overturned the conviction after 30 years and Martinez was instead found guilty of misdemeanor charges carrying an 18-month sentence.
“It shocks the conscience that it took three decades to correct Mr. Martinez’s invalid convictions,” said his motion for bail.
However, instead of gaining his freedom, Martinez is now in federal custody to face the Mexican Mafia racketeering charges.
As a prisoner in state custody, Martinez became an inmate leader, teaching himself the law and organizing hunger strikes against what he viewed as unfair jail conditions, such as the overuse of solitary confinement. He completed classes to become a paralegal, a marketable skill that could help him outside prison.
Rise in Mexican Mafia
However, according to published reports, he also rose in prominence within the deadly prison gang, taking the reins of the Orange County chapter of the Mexican Mafia after the 2016 death behind bars of chieftain Peter Ojeda, aka “Sana.”
If state and federal indictments are to be believed, Martinez used smuggled cellphones while incarcerated to order murders and direct criminal activities on the streets. His alleged reign at the top of the Orange County gang has been a bloody one, according to court records, although state efforts to convict him have been spotty.
Orange County prosecutors accused Martinez and another jail inmate of orchestrating the 2017 death of Placentia drug dealer Robert Rios, who they suspected of failing to pay taxes to the Mexican Mafia. Rios was shot dead outside his home after confronting two men caught on his security cameras.
The charges against Martinez were dropped by a judge for lack of probable cause, court records say. Also, the Public Defender’s Office revealed that an Orange County sheriff’s deputy who served as a gang expert had lied in a related case. The Rios killing is now a part of the federal indictment against Martinez.
The racketeering indictment also accuses Martinez of ordering the 2017 death of Costa Mesa gang member Richard Velleda, who was shot seven times in the head and back and left for dead on a street in Orange. Three men described by federal prosecutors as Mexican Mafia foot soldiers who allegedly took their orders from Martinez were convicted of the murder.
Supporters predict ‘bright future’
Martinez’s supporters don’t believe the allegations, instead focusing on their own experiences with him.
They see a man who, under the Constitution, shouldn’t have been in prison for all those years. They see a man not made bitter, but made stronger in his activism and advocacy for the rights of other prisoners.
“Mr. Martinez certainly has the capacity to create a bright and productive future. Given his brilliant analytical and writing skills, perhaps he could even practice law,” said one of Martinez’s previous attorneys, Orly Ahrony.
Martinez’s mother, Dolores A. Canales, is a reformed five-time felon who now sits on the nine-member Los Angeles County Probation Oversight Commission, appointed by Supervisor Janice Hahn. The commission was formed in 2020 to help rebuild the county’s troubled Probation Department, where 66 officers were recently placed on leave for alleged misconduct.
Canales also is a nationally known prisoners rights activist as co-founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement and a former youth coordinator for the Orangewood Children’s Foundation.
In a letter to the judge, Canales wrote: “After everything my son has been through, you would think he would be full of anger and bitterness. But his strong belief in the law and in justice is what keeps him going.”
Kevin McCarthy, a student at Columbia Law School and a former prisoner, said Martinez worked hard while incarcerated, seeking justice for those behind bars.
“Johnny spent virtually all of his time helping others with their legal problems. He spent his days combing through transcripts and drafting legal petitions to challenge illegal sentences, issues of guilt and unlawful prison conditions,” McCarthy wrote in a letter to Judge John D. Early, supporting bail. “If that isn’t impressive enough, he never charged anyone for his help. He helped others out of Christian faith.”
Warned students about gang life
Throughout his imprisonment, Martinez kept in touch with Glen Collard, his childhood principal at Kraemer Junior High and again at El Camino Real High School, both in Placentia. In a letter to the court, Collard said their correspondence focused on positive things Martinez could do while in prison.
One of the things that Martinez did was pen a five-page letter to the high school students about the pitfalls of gang life.
“This attitude and positive concern for kids from his neighborhood have continued to be a theme through 28 years of communication,” Collard told the court.
In his handwritten letter to students, Martinez advised them to “be above the completely senseless gang banging. Gang banging either gets you dead or locked up.
“Put your gang violence behind you and stick with your education,” he wrote. “I also encourage you to learn about God.”
Prosecutors: Supporters ‘snowed’
In court documents, prosecutors said the letter writers were “snowed” by Martinez.
“The depth of delusion that permeates these letters is nicely illustrated by the assertion … that defendant ‘spent years demonstrating a commitment to peace and community welfare,’ ” they said.
Prosecutors cited one quote from Martinez from an intercepted phone call: “I am Crow … and I am from the ‘M.’ … You wanna live in my (expletive) turf, you gotta be under my guidelines.”
