D.A. points to MySpace accounts in hearing

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

The social networking web site www.MySpace.com was the main topic of discussion yesterday in Superior Court during the preliminary hearing for a 14-year-old Santa Barbara boy charged with murder.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Hilary Dozer, the prosecutor in the case, unveiled more than a dozen local youth’s sites, including the site belonging to the defendant in the case, Ricardo “Ricky” Juarez, who has been charged with murdering 15-year-old Luis Angel Linares during a March 14 gang brawl on State Street.

Juarez has pleaded innocent to the charge.
The thread that ties each of the MySpace accounts together are pictures that show Juarez and many other eastside youths flashing gang signs.
Though the pictures were not shown to the public yesterday, Dozer questioned Santa Barbara Police Detective Mike Brown, who obtained search warrants for MySpace, to describe the pictures during his testimony.
Dozer said the pictures, which show Juarez using his right hand to depict an E, for East, and his left hand an S, for Side, will help show that Linares’s death was gang motivated, and that the gang enhancement sought in the charges against Juarez are credible.
“I believe we’re clearly showing to the court his involvement with the Eastside Traviesos street gang,” Dozer said. “I think the MySpace information goes a long way to answer if the crime was gang related.”
Dozer said the ability to try Juarez as an adult, which District Attorney Christie Stanley opted to do, is reliant on the defendant’s involvement with a gang.
If Judge Brian Hill decides the stabbing was not gang related, Dozer has said there would be “legal effects” that could greatly reduce the extent of Juarez’s sentence, if he is found guilty.
But after the MySpace photos were shown to the court yesterday, Dozer seemed confident that Juarez’s involvement with a gang is indisputable.
“When you have someone who has such a clear gang affiliation, whether he’s 15 or 14-years-old, we would be remiss in our responsibility if we did not charge him as an adult,” Dozer said.
After Describing each of the pictures contained on the MySpace pages, Dozer asked Brown about a juvenile named Jose M., who after being interviewed at police headquarters on the day of the incident, was placed in an interrogation room alone with Juarez.
Brown said the two boys’ conversation was recorded, but that they whispered.
Brown said Juarez told Jose M. in the recording that he remembered “sticking” Linares by the MTD Transit Center and that Juarez was kicked, lost his balance and fled to State Street where he tossed the knife into a garbage can.
Brown said the word “sticking” is a word used to describe stabbing a person.
“What he remembers was being more by the transit center,” Brown said. “He remembered sticking him [Linares] and blood coming out of his mouth.”
Dozer said Juarez’s whispered statements to Jose M. are equally as important as the MySpace information.
Dozer pointed to testimony given earlier in the week by Santa Barbara Police Detective Gary Siegel, who said Juarez admitted during a police interview to wielding the knife on State Street and pursuing Linares to the parking lot of Saks Fifth Avenue.
A youth named Mario A., who testified on Monday and during the first part of yesterday’s hearing, said he saw Linares throw the knife into a garbage can on State Street.
“I think that paints four different pictures of what Ricardo Juarez did with that knife,” Dozer said.
The preliminary hearing will continue at 9 a.m. today in Department 14 which is located in the Jury Services Building on Santa Barbara Street.