Gang Member Gets 7 Life Terms for Role in Crime Rampage

VAN NUYS —  One member of the Asian Boyz street gang, a former college honor student who was convicted of two shootings that left one man dead, was sentenced Friday to seven terms of life in prison.

David Evangalista, 24, will not be eligible for parole for 125 years.

“He could have been a leader in the community,” Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp said before sentencing Evangalista. “Why his life went this way will always be a mystery. He had everything going for him.”

Evangalista is the first of seven members of the feared Van Nuys faction of the gang to be sentenced for a 1995 crime spree that police said left 13 dead. Authorities said the shootings, which targeted gang rivals as well as strangers, were a violent effort by the group to become the most feared gang in Los Angeles County.

The gang was prosecuted for seven of those slayings, which included the ambush of a rival Latino gang on the Lunar New Year. Relying heavily on the testimony of two admitted gang members turned state’s evidence, a Van Nuys jury convicted all of the defendants for their roles in all but one shooting.

Evangalista, whose back is covered with a tattoo of a dragon and the gang’s initials, was found guilty for his role in two shootings in the San Fernando Valley the night of July 23, 1995.

No one came to speak for or against Evangalista at Friday’s sentencing. His relatives did not attend, nor did the victims or their relatives.

Evangalista did not address the court. The Philippines native sat silently as his lawyer asked the judge to take into consideration his 4.0 grade-point average at Taft College, his volunteer work at a hospital in Queens, N.Y., and the look of remorse that crossed his face when the jury’s verdict was read.

“I think he has had an exemplary past prior to any involvement he had with the Asian Boyz here in Los Angeles,” defense lawyer David Houchin said. “I hope the court was aware of that.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Laura Baird countered that while Evangalista may have had it all, he threw it away.

“He could have done anything with his life and he chose to become a gang member,” Baird said. “It is something that he chose to do and it is appalling because he had such potential.”

Schempp sentenced Evangalista to 45 years to life for the killing and six consecutive life terms on attempted murder charges. Because he was convicted of gang-related crimes, he would have to serve 15 years on each of those life sentences before he is eligible for parole.

Prosecutors sought the death penalty against Evangalista and four others. But Schempp’s dismissal of two of the murder charges, and the jury’s inability to convict on the other, made Evangalista ineligible for capital punishment.

During the four-month trial, the father of the state’s key witness was gunned down at his San Jose home. Authorities later found the victim’s address in a jail-issued prayer book in Evangalista’s cell, listed under a phony name and phone number.

While police suspect the slaying was in retribution for Truong Dinh’s testimony at trial, charges have yet to be filed in the case.

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Jurors are now hearing evidence in a penalty trial that could end in death sentences for four Evangalista accomplices--Bunthoeun Roeung, Sothi Menh, Roatha Buth and Son Thanh Bui.

Defense attorneys are expected to portray their clients as men who were scarred by Cambodia’s notorious “killing fields,” a period that some are said to have lived through as children.

The Asian Boyz gang is made up of Cambodian, Vietnamese and Filipino members whose families immigrated to the United States in the 1970s.

Two other gang members who were not eligible for the death penalty--Kimorn Nuth because he was a juvenile at the time of the slayings and Ky Tony Ngo because he was charged in only one killing--are scheduled to be sentenced next month.