Mexican Mafia lawyer to avoid prison after prosecutors withheld evidence

A former lawyer for the Mexican Mafia who was facing decades — if not life — in prison instead will have his prosecution ended without any jail time, supervised release or fines.

Gabriel Zendejas-Chavez was charged in 2018 with helping his locked-up clients relay information to other gang members, messages that aided drug distribution and exposed government informants, as reported by the Los Angeles Times .

While that 2018 investigation focused on Los Angeles County jails, the FBI noted at the time that Chavez “allegedly conveyed Mexican Mafia messages to members at different state and federal prisons.”

He also allegedly provided the names of possible government informants and assisted with a plan to extort $100,000 from another gang.

Chavez, 47, could have been sentenced to life in prison if convicted of four felonies related to criminal conspiracy, but instead, he pleaded guilty on Thursday to a single charge of misprision of a felony, an archaic term that indicates he knew a felony was being committed but did not report that information to authorities.

He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 4, and his plea deal indicates he’ll avoid both prison and probation, as reported by legal reporter Meghann Cuniff on her Substack Legal Affairs and Trials with Meghann Cuniff .

Cuniff noted that “the plea deal is a big change in approach from prosecutors, who had planned to retry Chavez alongside three others facing their first trial, including Mexican Mafia leader Jose ‘Fox’ Landa-Rodriguez, after a jury couldn’t decide on a verdict in his first trial in August 2022.”

At issue is information that Chavez’s attorney Meghan Blanco said should’ve been released before that first trial.

That information, related to “notes about meetings with prison informants that prosecutors previously said never occurred,” contradicts testimony in the first trial, Blanco explained in Cuniff’s report.

Prosecutors admitted that they “fell short” in their responsibilities and “missed documents that should have been produced prior to defendant’s first trial,” Cuniff reports.

Though prison and probation are off the table, Chavez still expects to be disbarred, his attorney said.

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