Three men take plea deals in deadly gang-related shootout at Turlock motel
A plea deal has been reached for three men charged in a fatal shootout at a Turlock motel on Labor Day 2020.
The incident, in which more than 20 shots were fired, happened at the Days Inn near Highway 99 and Main Street when a fight broke out between rival gangs in neighboring rooms.
Mario Meza-Nolazco, 26, was killed during the incident. The three people charged with his murder were his friends and were in the same group at the motel, said Deputy District Attorney Tracy Griffin.
But those men — Miguel Saldate, 22, Eric Rodriguez, 29, and Fernando Venegas, 34 — on Wednesday pleaded no contest to assault with a semiautomatic firearm. The murder charges were dismissed.
Rodriguez also pleaded no contest to being a felon in possession of a firearm and admitted an enhancement for personal use of a firearm. He was sentenced to nine years and eight months in prison and must serve 85% of that because the enhancement makes the crime a violent strike, said defense attorney Aaron Villalobos.
Saldate and Venegas were sentenced to nine years in prison but will have to serve only half of their sentence because they did not have the enhancement, so their charge is considered a nonviolent strike under California law, Griffin said.
Had they been convicted of murder, they faced 15 years to life in prison.
The defendants and Meza-Nolazco were associated with the Sureño street gang, Griffin said. Her office charged Saldate, Venegas and Rodriguez with Meza-Nolazco’s death under the provocative act doctrine, she said.
“Essentially, four Sureño gang members approached two Norteño gang members and the Sureño gang members initiated the shooting, Griffin said.
It was the prosecution’s position that Juan Jose Cruz Jr. fired at Meza-Nolazco in self-defense.
“That is what provocative act doctrine is all about, when the intended victim acts in self-defense and shoots a participant of the initial aggressors,” she said.
Saldate, Venegas and Rodriguez also initially were charged with the attempted murder of Cruz Jr., but those charges were dismissed in exchange for the plea to the lesser charge of assault with a semiautomatic firearm.
Griffin said gang enhancements were dismissed against the men last year due to changes in the law that narrows the prosecution’s ability to add them to charges.
Cruz Jr. was charged with and previously pleaded to being a gang member carrying a loaded firearm and participating in a street gang. He has already served his one-year jail sentence for that crime.
Also Wednesday, in light of the pleas of the three men, charges were dismissed against a woman accused of being an accessory to murder after the fact.
