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SANTA ANA (CNS) - An Orange County Superior Court judge Monday found true a gang allegation against a man already convicted of the beating death of a homeless man in Westminster, but acquitted him and another defendant of a felony charge of participating in gang activity.
Christian Huerta, 24, of Huntington Beach, and Andrew Holguin, 26, of Midway City, were both convicted March 27 for the June 20, 2019, killing of 45- year-old Duc Le.
Jurors, who deliberated for about a day, convicted Holguin of second- degree murder and Huerta of voluntary manslaughter.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Steven Bromberg ruled Monday in a non-jury trial that a sentencing enhancement for gang activity was true for Holguin, but the judge acquitted him of a felony count of participating in gang activity.
Bromberg also acquitted Huerta of the same felony charge and denied the gang-activity sentencing enhancement for the defendant.
Huerta was scheduled to be sentenced May 10. He faces between three and 11 years in prison.
Holguin was scheduled to be sentenced June 14 and faces 15 years to life in prison.
The two have been in custody since 2019.
At issue in the second phase of the trial was how much the affiliation the defendants had with a local gang played in their motivation for the crime. In 2021, the lead detective in the case testified the chief activity of the gang was vandalism, but after a change in the law last year, vandalism is not enough to attach gang enhancements to a crime.
Deputy District Attorney Lisa Harris argued that the convictions for the assault, coupled with other incidents of assaults by the gang, justified the enhancements.
In Holguin's case, he punched the slumbering victim three times before the assault that led to his death and then bragged to his friends that he "taxed" the victim, Harris said. The slang refers to a gang assault.
Holguin's attorney, Roger Sheaks, argued the law prevents changing the primary activity of the gang before the trial.
Huerta's attorney, Joel Garson, argued in an analogy that showing there were some "bad apples" in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department wouldn't prove the department as a whole was a gang. He said there were about three crimes of assaults over three years in a gang of about 25 members, Garson said.
Another suspect -- Jeffrey Andrade -- remains at-large and a fourth defendant is being tried as a juvenile.
Le's body was found at about 10 p.m. June 20 on Locust Street just south of Westminster Boulevard, police said.
Half of Le's ribs were broken along with his jaw, Lisa Harris said in her opening statement of the trial.
The assailants "saw an easy target" in Le, a "homeless man sleeping on a couch," Harris said.
One witness saw "them punching and kicking and at first didn't know a human being" was the target, Harris said.
Then the witness saw the attackers "drag him across the street" and through a construction site as "his hair came out of his scalp," Harris said. The victim's ear was nearly torn off, the prosecutor added.
At some point, something "came over" Holguin and he "bashed (Le) over and over again with his skateboard, and if he wasn't already dead yet he certainly was now," Harris said.
Then one of the men told the witness, "Go buy us a beer," Harris said.
The witness was so frightened he complied, Harris said.
Investigators recovered surveillance video from the 14100 block of Locust Street. But it was surveillance video from La Aguila Market that "broke the case open" because it was so much clearer, Harris said.
The witness who bought the beer was seen in the video so police questioned him and he initially denied knowing anything about it, Harris said.
"He was terrified about what he had seen," Harris said.
The witness identified Huerta, Holquin, the juvenile and Andrade, Harris said.
"What he's consistent about is these four people in the surveillance video were the ones who murdered Duc," Harris said.
A Westminster officer recognized Huerta in the market's video, and probation officers identified the juvenile and Andrade. Another detective also identified Andrade, Harris said.
Another witness, who was 14 at the time, also spoke with investigators and was uncooperative, but he was given limited immunity from prosecutors, Harris said.
Holguin's girlfriend was tracked down through cell phone records, and she said Holguin told her that he and his friends had killed the victim, Harris said.
Sheaks argued the beating was spontaneous and that the attackers did not form any intent to kill the victim.
"Never in a million years the kid you heard on the stand formed an intent to kill anybody," Sheaks argued. "And it's that intent that is driving this case or not."
The victim's attackers "didn't even know the guy was hurt that bad," Sheaks said. "How are they supposed to know? ... We had to have an expert come in and tell us how he died."
Sheaks said much of what Holguin testified to in the trial "was corroborated by other independent evidence."
The defense attorney accused Lopez of "shading all of his testimony to protect Andrade and himself."
"It seems like the idea was to beat him up" and not kill the victim, Sheaks said.
Sheaks argued for involuntary manslaughter, and noted that his client was drinking heavily the night of the attack.
"This is immaturity that went too far," he argued. "It's drunken, stupid, young adult nonsense."
Garson said his client was on trial because police decided he was "guilty by association," and that Huerta was seen on surveillance video after the attack nearby with the other accused suspects.
Garson accused police of "ignoring contrary evidence" in their investigation when some suspects offered differing accounts.
Garson focused on the statements Carlos Orantes made to police. Orantes initially said he wasn't there, but then later admitted he was at the crime scene.
Orantes initially identified Holguin as a suspect, but later said he did not recognize Holguin, Garson said. In another interview, Orantes fingered Holguin, the juvenile and Andrade as suspected attackers, Garson said. But Orantes did not say Huerta participated in the beating, Garson said.
In court papers, Garson said Ricky Lopez came forward after the ex- wife of a "disgraced" Westminster officer tipped investigators that Lopez was at the crime scene. Lopez, who was 14 at the time, was questioned by police, Garson said.
Garson said Le was notorious in the neighborhood for masturbating in public, but even though a pathologist said she saw what appeared to be semen on the victim, it was never tested.
"This has been known since 2019," Garson said. "They could have tested it last week."
Garson also argued that police bullied Lopez, threatening to lock him up on $1 million bond and then began shaping his statements to fit their theory.
"They tell him, `don't worry, we want you to be a witness,"' Garson said. "Why would police do that? Because they had their minds made up."
Le was killed for no apparent reason, the prosecutor said in closing arguments.
"We're talking about a 45-year-old man, sleeping on a couch and he was brutally murdered," she said.
Harris argued that Holguin punched the slumbering Le a few times and then circled back to his friends to "brag" about it, prompting them to ask why he didn't wait for them.
Harris noted that the attackers also dragged the victim across the street and back. "And the beating continued," she said.
The victim was beaten so viciously "he evacuated his bowels," Harris said.
The victim was born in Vietnam before emigrating to the United States, she added.
Prosecutors said Le had mental health issues and would drift in and out of homelessness.