Kansas City News Blog

By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

The courtroom in Wyandotte County was eerily silent on Friday, except for the metallic rustle of ankle chains as Jose Franco Jr. shifted slightly in the defendant’s chair.

The rows of wooden benches behind him were empty. No family or friends had come to support the 20-year-old as he faced 10 years in prison for his involvement in a fatal shooting last year. Prosecutors allege that Franco was a leader in the Familia Loca gang, whose “soldiers” fired into the home of a rival gang member on April 3, 2007. Instead of hitting their intended target, though, they killed 2-year-old Yelena Guzman.

In August, Franco was found guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal discharge of a firearm at an occupied building.

On Friday, before Wyandotte County Judge John McNally handed down his sentence, Franco awkwardly explained to the court some of what he told me when I spoke briefly with him in jail this past summer.

Behind the glass, in a small alcove on a lower level of the Wyandotte County Adult Detention Center in May, Jose Franco didn’t look like the menacing gang member the evidence suggested during his first trial. The orange jumpsuit exposed gang tattoos on his hands and arms, but his voice was soft and his smile was shy. He leaned forward on his elbows, his shoulders hunched toward his ears as if trying to make himself smaller. He didn’t speak with the distant, defiant tone of other gang members. He seemed more like a bashful kid at a skateboard park than a hardened teenager who engineered a slaying.

During a stormy week in April, though, prosecutors alleged that Franco and his friend, Valentino Hernandez, were the leaders of Familia Loca, a gang that dealt drugs and engaged in street violence. Luis Gonzalez, a member of the FL gang, testified that Franco ordered him and Daniel Perez to open fire on the home of Carlos Moreno. The mission was reportedly an act of retaliation — a strike against rival gang Florencia 13, which had hit Hernandez’s house with AK-47 fire.

Yelena Guzman

Franco’s attorney, William Dunn, argued there was no conclusive evidence that Franco was the gang leader. Only the words of Gonzalez, who had already made a deal with the district attorney, suggested that Franco ordered the hit that killed Yelena Guzman.

The murder trial ended in a hung jury.

A few weeks later, when I visited Franco in jail, he maintained his innocence. He acknowledged that he had been a longtime member of Familia Loca. His mom died in a car crash when he was 5 years old, he said. His dad, a Chihuahua native who moved to KCK in 1980, had a construction job, so he was rarely home. Franco said he started hanging out at his aunt’s house. A number of his cousins were involved in FL. He joined the gang when he was just 10 years old.

Franco said he was one of about 30 members. Twenty were known on the streets; the other 10 kept their affiliation under raps so they could gather intelligence. The FLs sold marijuana, crack and cocaine, he said. They used the money to take care of the family — the members of the gang.

But that didn’t insulate Franco. When he was 12 years old, he said, he had a falling out with some FL members and ended up on the streets. Homeless and without money, he robbed a stranger for cash. But being part of the fold was rough, too. Familia Loca was the kind of crew that like to make themselves known, Franco said. They had feuds, not just with Florencia 13, but other gangs, like the 18th Streeters.

Despite years of involvement, Franco insisted he was never a leader in FL. He said his close friend Valentino Hernandez was a “captain.” But he wasn’t around when that decision was made; he was in jail at the time. Franco laughed at the notion that he would be given a higher rank. He wasn’t a model member when it came to taking orders, he said.

As for April 3, 2007, Franco acknowledged that he was at Hernandez’shouse that night. But, despite Gonzalez’s testimony, Franco said he didn't order the hit. He said a fellow FL member had made up that story to punish him. “Because I turned my back on the gang,” he said.

How did he turn his back? When he was questioned by police in July 2007, Franco explained to the cops what happened the night Guzman died. He said it was Luis Gonzalez who drove the car and Daniel Perez who pulled the trigger. Other members, Franco said, considered that a betrayal and altered their stories to implicate him as the leader of the fatal excursion. When Franco was booked into the Wyandotte County Detention Center, he said, he specifically asked to be placed in protective custody and removed from the general prison population, where he might be at risk.

Franco said he was already thinking about trying to leave the gang, even before Guzman was killed. He has a son, Jose, who’s now 2 years old. Being a parent, he said, made him realize gang life was “foolishness.” But he didn’t know how to get out.

He’ll have the next 10 years — at least — to think about it.

A few months after I spoke with him in jail, Franco was tried a second time. The jury hung on the murder charge again. But it did find him guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal discharge of a weapon into an occupied building. At his sentencing hearing on Friday, Franco asked the judge for leniency. He apologized to Fernando Guzman and Ramona Moreno, the slain toddler’s parents.

“I know I made the wrong decision to be part of the gang,” Franco said, explaining himself in broken, repetitive sentences. “I turned my back on the gang and I guess this is their retaliation against me.”

“I just ask for a little mercy,” he added. “I just want to say to everybody that I’m sorry for what happened.”

“It’s too late, man,” Fernando Guzman said, raising his voice at the alleged gang leader before his wife touched his arm. “It’s too late.”

Yelena's parents, Fernando Guzman and Ramona Moreno

As the young couple cried softly in the front row, McNally sentenced Franco to 10 years in prison.

But the 20-year-old could serve far more time. Daniel Perez, the FL member who shot into the Moreno’s house, was convicted of murder and is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for 20 years. At both of Franco’s earlier trials, the jury hung 11 to one in favor of guilt on the same charge. Assistant District Attorney Michael Russell is still gunning for a second murder conviction.

So Franco will be back in that silent courtroom, for a third trial, in March 2009.