By Mark Gutglueck
Edin Alex Enamorado, the leader of his eponymous activist group and the last of what were originally eight defendants facing charges growing out of three incidents among dozens in which what the perpetrators maintained were efforts to stand up for the rights of street vendors and which prosecutors allege were out-and-out assaults, has relieved the attorney who previously represented him, Nicholas Rosenberg, and has substituted in Damon Alimouri, an attorney who was able to get one of Enamorado’s codefendants a relatively light sentence through a plea bargain.
What remains to be seen is whether Alimouri will be able to argue his latest client’s innocence effectively to a jury or convince Enamorado that his wisest course of action is to give up on fighting the totality of the charges against him and accept a plea deal.
Such a plea deal may require that Enamorado, a native of Guatemala, accept deportation.
Having grown up on the streets of Cudahy after his parents emigrated to the United States when he was an infant, Enamorado engaged in gang activity as a youth and accumulated a string of convictions, including a felony before experiencing the death of his girlfriend at the hand of other gang members. That convinced Enamorado to turn his life around, he claims, and he for the last several years has been dedicated to assisting the downtrodden, in particular immigrant Latinos such as himself, who have been reduced to engaging in street and sidewalk vending to survive in the white capitalist culture of California.
His mission is to prevent authorities and bigoted Anglos from harassing those street and sidewalk vendors as they ply their trade.
In doing so, Edin Enamorado has invited others, people who are essentially his followers, to assist him in confronting those who do not treat vendors with dignity. From that point forward, the Enamorados were on a crusade for social justice.
That is what he and Stephanie Amésquita, 34 of San Bernardino; Vanessa Carrasco, 41 of Ontario; Wendy Luján, 41 of Upland; David Chávez, 28 of Riverside; Edwin Peña, 27 of Los Angeles and Fernando Lopez, 45 of Los Angeles, were doing over the Labor Day weekend 2023 on September 3, when they went to the El Super Market in Pomona to confront a security guard who worked at that store who had, in Enamorado’s view, proven too confrontational with a food vendor who had set up his operation on the El Super premises. The group confronted the security guard, pepper-sprayed him and then followed him into the store, where security cameras captured images of Enamorado and some of the other Enamorados punching and kicking the security guard, who was blinded by the pepper spray and ultimately knocked to the ground.
Subsequently that day, after Luján, who is variously described as Enamorado’s girlfriend, wife or companion, was arrested as a consequence of the contretemps between the security guard and the Enamorados at the El Super and on its grounds, the group headed to the Pomona Police headquarters to attempt to free her. While they were there, a resident of Pomona had also come to the police department headquarters in the Pomona civic plaza to make a complaint on an unrelated matter. Apparently unrecognized by all or most of those involved was that the police headquarters was closed because for the Labor Day holiday. When the Pomona resident could not get inside the entrance to the police department to file his complaint, he erroneously interpreted the presence of the Enamorados milling about the front of the police department to be the reason he could not make his complaint. Words were exchanged and the man threw an empty Gatorade bottle at some of the Enamorados before getting into his vehicle and driving off. Either ascertaining where he lived by some means or following him to his home, one or two of the Enamorados and then a contingent of ten or eleven of them arrived at his residence where they confronted him. After Enamorado challenged him to a fight, the man was forced to his knees, where he groveled before his tormentors, pleading with them not to harm him.
Further threats to harm John Doe 2 were made, capped by Carrasco implying that they could have easily killed him. “We let you live, homey,” she said.
Three weeks later, on September 24, Edin Enamorado along with Amésquita, Vanessa Carrasco, Luján, Chávez, Peña and Fernando Lopez, , this time joined by another member in good standing of the Enamorados, Gullit Eder “Jaguar” Acevedo, sojourned to Victorville, near the Victorville Sheriff’s Station on Amargosa Road near Palmdale Road to protest an incident that had occurred less than two days earlier, September 22, in the parking lot outside Ray Moore Stadium in the immediate aftermath of a football game between Victor Valley and Big Bear high schools when San Bernardino County he evening of September 22 when Sheriff’s Deputy Starsun Fincel was videotaped slamming a 16-year-old girl, Faith Jeffers, a student at Victor Valley High, as the deputy and one of his colleagues sought to break up a fight that had broken out between Jeffers and another girl.
With his trademark bullhorn in hand, Edin Enamorado led a party of roughly 40 Enamorados, most of them from lower San Bernardino County and Los Angeles County, as they joined with an equal or greater number of protesters from the High Desert, several of them carrying placards calling for justice for Jeffers, as they paraded along the highly visible stretch of Palmdale Road between Amargosa Road and McArt Road. As Enamorado was exhorting the crowd to demand the deputy’s firing and prosecution, a husband and wife who had just had their car, a Hyundai, cleaned at the car wash proximate to the sheriff’s station, were attempting to exit onto Palmdale Avenue. The parade of protesting Enamorados moving along the sidewalk and within the gutter of Palmdale Avenue together with the traffic on Palmdale made doing so impossible. Initially, the occupants of the Hyundai exhibited patience, but after more than two minutes, the woman, who was driving, sounded the Hyundai’s horn. This had no appreciable impact on the protesters, who continued to file in front of the car, such that the driver could not move the car forward without running into and possibly injuring one or more of the protesters. A further wait ensued, at which point the woman sounded the horn once more and the man opened the door on the passenger’s side of the car. As the man emerged, Enamorado, making use of his bullhorn, accused him of hitting a woman by opening his car door into her, doing so in rather derogatory terms, including referring to the man as a “bitch.” One, then two, and then a third Enamorado began to rain blows on the man, who attempted to defend himself while he was angled away from the car and then knocked to the ground. As he attempted to get to his feet, he was pepper sprayed.
The man succeeded in getting up but as he was staggering, he was knocked to the ground once more and kicked while he was down. After the man was pepper sprayed and on the ground for the second time, Edin Enamorado can be heard repeatedly remarking, “That’s what he gets.”
Several sheriff’s deputies, who had previously been monitoring the protest from the back parking lot of the sheriff’s station, at that point swung into action. They arrested Luján, Chávez and two others Victor Alba, 30, of Victorville, and another Enamorado, Wayne Freeman, 36, of Moreno Valley, on suspicion of obstructing a peace officer, battery and unlawful assembly.
Edin Enamorado, who celebrates his activism on multiple social media accounts, routinely made a practice of using his own cellphone as well as handheld cameras and ones based on tripods wielded by other Enamorados to video the protests and actions he and his fellow activists took part in.
When investigators with both the Pomona Police Department and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department began to look into the activities of the Enamorados, they came across video of both September 3 incidents as well as those of September 24, among multiple others. Indeed, the assault on the husband who emerged from the Hyundai at the carwash on Palmdale Road on September 24 was captured from at least three separate perspectives. Among those who can be seen in one of the video depictions hitting the man is Edin Enamorado, who does so with his left fist while holding and continuing to video with his cellphone in his right hand.
The documentation of the Enamorados’ activities that Edin Enamorado had provided to the world on his several websites and social media platforms simplified the investigators’ tasks of documenting the assaultive behavior that was the Enamorados’ trademark. The sheriff’s department used that documentation to get arrest warrants and put together a backup documentation to the charges prosecutors were preparing against the eight. On on the morning of December 14, 2023, between 3:20 a.m. and 4:46 a.m. López, Enamorado, Luján, Chávez, Carrasco, Acevedo’ Amésquita and Peña were taken into custody.
Despite the best effort of a legal team of seven lawyers who utilized every opening presented to them during a preliminary hearing process that dragged on into late January, Enamorado, Luján, Chávez, Carrasco, Amésquita, Peña and López were bound over for trial and repeatedly denied bail. Only Acevedo, who had initially been erroneously accused by the prosecution, his attorney Dan Chambers established, of being present at both of the incidents in Pomona on September 3, was granted bail. In general, the Enamorados put on trial were accused of one count of PC182(A)(1)-felony conspiracy to commit a crime and multiple counts of PC245(a)(4) – felony assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury; PC422(A) – issuing felony threats to engage in criminal action likely to result in death or great bodily injury; PC236 – felony false imprisonment; PC22810(G)(1) – felony unlawful use of tear gas; and PC207(A). In addition, Edin Enamorado was one count of PC22810(A) – misdemeanor possession of tear gas by a convicted felon; and one count of PC29800(A)(1) – felony possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.
While Acevedo was free, the other seven remained incarcerated. On June 7, Luján, Chávez, Carrasco, Amésquita and Peña entered a single guilty plea each to a single count of violating Penal Code § 245(a)(4)-F: assault by means of force likely to produce great bodily injury, and López entered a single guilty plea to PC245(a)(1)-F: assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm likely to result in great bodily injury, whereupon Judge John M. Wilkerson accepted the pleas upon finding they were intelligently and knowledgeably made. In sentencing Luján, Carrasco, Amésquita, he granted the three women an immediate release, with a requirement that they return to court on December 12, at which point they are to be sentenced to 353 days in county jail and will simultaneously be given, as of that date, credit for 353 days’ time served. Chávez, Peña and López are to remain in custody and return to court on December 12, at which point they are to be sentenced to two years in state prison with 364 days’ credit for time served to be subtracted from that term.
Edin Enamorado remained defiant, insisting that his aggressive activities in defending the poor and disenfranchised and standing up for street vendors while confronting the racists who victimize them have never crossed the line into criminality. His attorney, Rosenberg, an experienced criminal defense attorney who has had some notable successes with serious cases, including gangland murders and crimes in which his clients were charged under the so-called RICO [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations] statute, wherein he obtained full exonerations or greatly mitigated convictions and sentences for his clients significantly less than what was anticipated, in vain sought to convince Enamorado that the strength of the evidence, including the video evidence Enamorado had provided to the prosecution through his internet and social postings, had greatly weakened his legal position. Enamorado, however, is convinced that the moral rectitude of his motives outpaces whatever negative implication might attend the tactics the Enamorados used. He believes that if he can get his attorney to utilize the forum of his trial to illustrate that aggressive means to combat the unjust laws being applied against the disenfranchised immigrant community that has only limited means of making its way in a hostile capitalistic society is morally right. He is willing to stake everything on the hope that one or two or three jurors will refuse to convict him for what he maintains are principled acts. Even if he is convicted, he believes, he will have delivered a blow for La Raza against the oppressive Anglo establishment.
Edin Enamorado was impressed with Alimouri’s advocacy of Carrasco, particularly the manner in which on one occasion the lawyer went so far as to risk a contempt of court citation by standing up in court without being first acknowledged by the judge and asserting loudly and angrily that his client had done nothing wrong and that failing to grant her bail was a grave miscarriage of justice. Perceiving Rosenberg’s willingness to strike a plea bargain as defeatist, Alimouri’s acceptance of a plea bargain for Carrasco notwithstanding, Enamorado has convinced himself that his future lies more properly in the hands of Alimouri. On June 28, with Deputy District Attorney Jason Wilkinson present before Judge Wilkerson Alimouri and co-counsel Kate Smith, the motion to relieve Rosenberg as counsel for Enamorado was heard and granted, with a recognition that Alimouri had been retained to represent him going forward.
Alimouri requested a bail hearing which was set for July 12. On July 12, however, the Alimouri was not able to make that appearance because of a conflict, Instead, Erik Hammett, who had represented López, appeared for him. Hammett made a motion to withdraw the hearing, and it was postponed until July 31.