Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
The Texas Mexican Mafia, also known as Mexikanemi, was formed after the creation of La Eme in California. As the gang has grown through the years, it became powerful enough to divide up San Antonio into four quarters and demand a 10% tax from all local drug dealers. Despite its propensity for internal violence, the gang has no trouble recruiting new members, even from the other side of the law.
On the night of May 4th 2014, a San Antonio Texas resident named Joey Maldonado to pay his friend Julian Pesina a visit.
Pesina was employed as a police officer fot Balcones heights, a small enclave inside San Antonio.
Julian Pesina was a patrol cop in the otherwise tiny police force but he had somewhat unusual side job for a peace officer in Texas.
Julian Pesina owned a small tattoo shop, notorious ink.
And would spend many of his days off there not just as the owner but with a tattoo gun in hand, personally inking up clients.
This day had been no different and around 9:45 pm , Pesina was ready to shutter the doors and call it a night.
His friend noticed that something was off about him .
Pesina had mentioned having recently seen his daughter,whish scould have been g00d news as he had ongoing problems with her mother after they had split.
Pesina seemed abnormally agitated, preoccupied and nervous and frequently glanced at his phone as they conversed.
Finally Pacina told Maldonado not to wait up for him and Maldonado headed off into the night , leaving Pesina to lock up the doors to notorious ink and go home .
Pesina sensed danger that night, but he couldn’t have possibly lnown that over the past few days, members of a gang known as the Texas Mexican mafia or Mexikanemi had literarlly dug a grave for him outside in the South Central Texas wilderness.
In fact ,the only thing that had saved Pesina thus far was his paranoia but that was about to change.
Despite Texas’s track record as a state that’s perfectly willing to execute cop killers, the Mexikanemi’ leaders were so dead set on murdering this police officer that they had now decided it was worth the risk of a public assassination.
At 10 pm Pesina received a text message as a white pontiac sunfire pulled out in front of his shop.
He got up , walked outside and conversed briefly with the driver unaware that the two men donning dark blue hoodies and ski masks were approaching to his side, one armed with a pistol and the other with a shotgun.
They ran up and opened fire, striking Pesina several times, as he fell they dove into the back seat of the sunfire and sped away , evading detection of law enforcement who poured onto the scene within three minutes of the shooting.
As police taped off the crime scene ,Pesina’s killers were working to cover their tracks, hiding the vehicle ,destroying the murder weapons and laying low around San Antonio.
The initial investigation turned up few clues,there were no eye witnesses of any va value and Maldonado had no idea who Pecina was supposed to meet that night.
But what no one knew , not Pesina ,not his killers and not even the Balcones Heights homicide investigators who showed up to the scene that day ,was that the FBI had captured the entire murder on video.
Just a few days prior an FBI agent disguised as an electician had climed the pole near the notorious Ink and installed a hidden camera pointed direclty at Pesina’s shop.
For you see , Julian Pesina was not merely a police officer who happened to own a tattoo parlor ,he was a man of many secrets and he lived a double life…
Today’s story will focus on the Mexikanemi .
the murder of Julian Pesina and the web of killers, snitches ,corruption and gang infighting that he he found himself caught in.
It is a tale of betrayal that centers on a man who is living on both side of the law,but who as you will see was far fron the only one to harbor such secrets…
To understand the gang’s roots we have to go back to the 1950’s in California where the original Mexican Mafia formed within the state’s prison system.
within just a few years of its foundation the gang became known worldwide as an extremely dangerous and deadly criminal organization that controlled much of the legitimate and illegimitate buisnesses around Los Angeles .
Through this one truth that criminals and and gang members will inevitably end up incarcerated and when they do,they can’t have angered those with the power to kill them inside prison walls.
While plenty of other prison gangs had formed by the 1950s,the Mexican Mafia’s quick rise to power represented a new tier in history of organized crime and other groups around the country took not.
That brings us to the 1980s in the Texas department of criminal justice where a man named Heriberto ” Herbie” Huerta decided to form a mexican mafia of his own.
According to commonly accepted history Huerta gained permission from the leaders of the California Mexican mafia.
Then drafted a constitution for what would become the Texas Mexican Mafia or Mexikanemi .
He first attempted to pass off the gang as a religion based around Aztec culture but when the Texas prison system didn’t go for it that pretense was basically dropped altogether.
The constitution has basically stayed unchanged since the original one version from 1991 describes the organization as:
” soldiers or army of Azlan”
Who exist to quote ; advance benefits for our families or race and generations which in the future will represent what we have founded by totally liberating the Mexican Nation.
It also contains provision for making money through any means necessary including narcotics trafficking murder contracts robberies extortion prostitution and what ever other commercial Enterprise anyone deemed worthwile by the gang decides to undertake.
As you may have already guessed, the Texas Mexican Mafia takes on a paramilitary structure with officers like genrals captains and lieutenants all the way down to prosects and associates or the people who filled these ranks could be rotated out or even demoted.
One thing stayed constant Huerto was giving the role of president for life
and another state prison inmate named Benito Alonso was made lifelong vice president.
The constitution bans gambling beyond the value of a pint of ice cream
as well as well as quote; heavy teasing between members and makes it cleat that treason will be punishable by death.
In its early years the Texas Mexican mafias main purpose was protection from other groups in prison .
Most notably the older and larger Texas syndicates.
But it quickly evolved into a criminal organization with power inside and outside of prison , akin to the Mexican Mafia structure in California.
Of all of the cities in Texas…
The Mexikanemi has the most power in San Antonio which the gang claims as its capital and divides into four corners for the north south east and west sides of town.
Each led by a genral who then reports up the chain with a main General controlling the entire city.
Who keeps in touch with Huerta and or Alonso.
Within City limits, the gang has such a enormous control that it decreed San Antonio drug dealers must pay an extortion tax of 10 % or a hundred dollars per ounce which is commonly kown as ” the dime”.
If you’re a drug dealer who does not want to pay “the dime” the Texas mexican mafia is very reasonable.
They ‘ll give you one by sending people to your house to hold you at gunpoint ransack the place for valuables and possibly assault you,rather than just moving straight to murder.
By the 1990’s Huerta had been convicted of racketeering and sent to ADX florence, a prison known as the Alcatraz of the of the rookies
that has a reputation for being the most high security penitentiary in the continental United states.
There he become known as one of just a handful of gangsters Nationwide who holds the power to control the streets from a tiny secluded cell.
In the same vein as figures like Larry Hoover…
Barry Mills…
Or pistol Pete Rollick.
In 1994 the same year Huerta was sentenced.
a power struggle began within the Mexican Mafia ,resulting in the murders of Jose Treviso and James Rivas in April of that year.
A Texas Mexican Mafia general named Robert Beaver Perez was convicted and sentenced to death five years later of shooting both vicitms.
under the theory that he as searching for luis blue adames a man who was challenging Huerta for control of the gang ,but ended up in a shootout with adame’s supporters.
Adames was killed, seven months later allegedly on Perez orders.
Three years after that in 1997 Texas Mexican mafia members committed the most brutal crimes in San Antonio’a History .
Murdering five people during an extortion attempt in what came to be known as the ” French Place massacre.
Perez was also convicted in Federal court of orchestrating those murders and prosecutors say they believe the ordered 12 to 18 killings around the same time.
That case was largely corroborated by the Mexicanemi hit man named frank Estrada who admitted to committing no less than seven murders for gang,yet was granted transactional immunity to testify on behalf of the prosecution.
This would be far from the only time the Feds showed their willingness to make deals with admitted murderers in order to prosecute the Texas Mexican Mafia.
As for Perez ,he was executed in 2007.
For the sake of convenience the Texas Mexican mafia’s middle management’s is split between prison and the streets, according to the testimony of gang dropouts members who reach a certain rank in prison and are released are immediately stripped of that rank and must prove themselves to the presiding general or high- ranking officer in order to be accepted in the outside world.
The inverse of this is true too those who go to prison must climb the ladder behind bars regardless of their rank on the outside.
The benefits of this are an extra layer of security to vet members while keeping the cenralized leadership of Huerta and Alanso in place.
In keeping with this theme of seperate yet connected a common symbol of Mexicanemi is a two- headed serpent whose body squirms to form a shape of the letter M.
But o amount of vetting can be 100% foolproof and that’s where Julian Pesina enters this story…
If nothing else , officer Pesina was a man of internal conflicts,he sought out a law enforcement career working as a jail guard at a GEO detention facility before joining balcones Heights Police in 2009.
yet he was clearly fascinated by life within organized crime, those who knew him would later testify that he had close family members that were associated with Mexicanemi.
And outside the uniform Pesina looked more like a mexicanemi member than a cop, he was covered in tattoos with implicit or even straight forward references to the gang.
Any of which should have have raised serious red flags to any law enforcement officer who saw them.
On his facebook page ,he was friends with both officers and gang- affiliated people but that was far from the worst of it.
It turned out that officer Julian Pesina didn’t just earn a living by patrolling the streets and tattooing ,he was a drug dealer who peddled heroin and meth in the very same community where he was arresting people for similar crimes.
But knowing full well,he was operating in an area where drug dealers who get too successful draw the ire of the Texas mexican mafia, pensina sought protection in a foolishly cunning way .
In early 2014 Pecina checked in with a northside San Antonio mexicanemi member named George Munchies Castillo , explaining that he’d been made a member of the gang long ago but had been out of the loop for the past six years.
And in an even riskier moved he admitted to owing thousands of dollars for failing to pay the dime during this time explaining that a mexicanemi lieutenant named Johnny smiley Solis .
a man who had recently vanished and was presumed murdered had charged him so much he couldn’t keep up.
He claimed that he joined the gang while in incarcerated using his former experience as a jail guard to drops names of imprisoned Texas Mexican mafia, members as proof that he had been in the mix.
The gang temporarily took him at his words but deliberately kept him out of the loop while they worked to veryfy his claims.
Amazingly by the second week of February 2014, the Texas Mexican Mafia had determined Pesina was in fact a member and placed his name on rosters that were distributed to Mexicanemi officers in San Antonio.
It was a roster that included many names and was constantly changing as members got promoted and demoted with time.
we’re not going to meticulously go through each officer but here are a few key figures to remember…
There was Reuben Menace Reyes ,the north side Lieutenant who entered that position in January 2014 after Johnny Solis vanished.
Under him was the sergeant Jerry Idrogo who had proved himself as a worthwile member by murdering 41 year old Billy Padilla at his charbon drive home months earlier in August of 2013.
Idrogo has scoped out the place followed Padilla into the home and shot him execution style with a pistol in front of Padilla’s Elementery school aged son,Idrogo had been given a time limit to commit the murder and let it lapse but still gained entry into the gang after its comletion.
In February 2014 after Pesina had been cleared as a Mexicanemi member it was Idrogo who started taking Pesina with him to collect dime payments around the north side.
Pesina’s role would be the muscle,he was essentially a driver and backup security for Idrogo in the case someone resisted making their paymen, as Idrogo’s helper Pesina was not allowed to have a phone during dime collection.
one of the highest ranking members outside of prison who’d been placed in charge of San Antonio was a man named raymond Tellez, also known as Indio, a longtime member involved in multiple murders who was perfectly willing to call hits ,fire bomb houses of those who failed to pay the dime and who raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegitimate income every year.
But Tellez had a secret no one in the gang knew.
In October 2012 when he was still a lieutenant ,he had been pulled over by police and caught with enough drugs to justify a lengthy prison term because of this he’d brokered a deal with authorities and offered to work for San Antonio Police Departement in order to be allowed to stay on the streets.
Tellez worked as an informant produced results including the arrest of 22 people involved in an a heroin methamphetamine and money laundering conspiracy.all while Tellez remained in good standing with the gang
As a matter of fact with a full encouragement Tellez was promoted to general of San Antonio over Texas Mexican Mafia, which seemingly made him the perfect police informant.
There was just one small catch , raymond Tellez was still operating as a full -fledged gang member , he was still selling drugs and carrying guns as a felon, which authorities may have been able to wrap their heads around for a while ,but he was also still murdering people.
after the Jig was up and he was busted for drugs and firearm possession in may 2013, Tellez admitted to participating in two murders that occurred after he’d become an informant both co,mmitted while police were incouraging him to rise the ranks of a gang where killings were the best means of upward mobility.
As for Julian Pesina , he was not a double agent like Perez nor was he operating some kind of deep cover mission for either the Mexican Texas Mafia or Law Enforcement.
He was a man who lived and worked as an officer but went out of his way to become a henchman for the strongest and most violent gang in the city where he worked.
he was well aware that the risks were enormous .
If the FBI found out what he was doing he would go to prison for years.
if the Texas- Mexican Mafia found out , they would try to kill him and as it turned out ….
By April 2014 both the FBI and the Texas Mexican Mafia had discovered Pesina’s secret and while neither group knew it at the time they were in a race to see who wold deal with him first while Pesina’s life hung in the balance…
For the FBI it all started in September 2013 when a suspected heroin dealer was arrested,his phone was seized and was eventually turned into a confidential informant, among his phone was a Julian who had texted the informant about drug transactions ,in a not so subtle language as well as texts with known Texas Mexican Mafia members.
By December of that year ,FBI special agent Marty Martinez was convinced that the Julian in the informants phone was Julian Pesina and he was determined to root him out.
They arranged for their informant to buy methamphetamine from Pesina but an unexpected Quirk arrived, Pesina was paranoid and somewhat more meticulous than his tendency to flaunt his own gang tattoos on Facebook would suggest.
He refused to do hand – to – hand transactions and instead fronted meth to the CI by leaving it in a flower pot for the informant to pick up.
So while the FBI had basically proved he was a meth dealer at this point before he could be prosecuted for meth distribution Pecina needed to pay the informant and complete the deal .
That was supposed to happen sometime in the first week of May 2014 right around the same time Pesina was killed.
But despite this evidence the fact that Pesina’s arrest was imminent and the possibility Pesina was committing violence for a gang that cultivates killers.the FBI notably decided against telling about the Balcones Heights police departement about Pesina.
Not eve nthe chief of police was kept in the loop.
Authorities would later attempt to downplay this Omission, but when the Texas Departement of public safety agent Brian Vajos was asked under oath,if they deliberately kept the Balkconey Heights police out of the loop beacuse they weren’t sure how the corruption ran.
He said ; ” that’s possible”
In April 2014 , agents placed the secret camera outside notorious Ink.
Within days known Mexicanemi heavy hitters were seen visiting the tattoo shop including Reyes who was fast earning a reptuation as a killer with no scruples as well as Idrogo who received the Mexicanemi tattoo at the shop from Pesina himself.
But if this meant that Pesina and Idrogo were becoming fast friends that was about to change quickly.
It all started one day when they were doing their dime collections at a house of a drug dealer named Vic- who went by Vicky.
Pesina seemed nervous the second they got there and after a few minutes in the house he abruptly got up and headed for is car leaving Idrogo inside the house with Vicky in a clear breach of protocol for dime collections.
Vicky then confronted Idrogo, demanding to know why he had brought a police officer to his house.
Idrogo was not amused quote;”look what you’re implying ,that ‘s a carnal,right, and he’s my carnal . and if i find out you’r lying to me, i’m going to kill you.Idrogo told him but Vicky didn’t falter.
He woke up his boyfriend who independently knew of an officer named julian Pesina then went online and showed Idrogo pictures of Pesina in a police uniform.
Then he picked up the phone called the Balcones Heights dispatcher and asked to speak to Julian pesina, the dispatcher said pesina wasn’t in there yet but would be soon.
Stunned but with no other way to get back home Idrogo returned to Pesina’s vehicle outside and was surpised to see Pesina on the phone , once again violating protocol for dime collections .
As soon as he could Idrogoo told his Lieutenant Ruben Reyes what he’d learned, Reyes thought about it for a coiple days then returned with his decision quote; ” he’s gotta go.”
Idrogo’s plan was to lure Pesina to a place where he could be killed with no witnesses and to be buried in a remote part of the wilderness, which the gang had done countless tomes before.
But Pesina had sensed danger and he didn’t givbe them an opportunity , frustrated and impatient Reyes then gave Idrogo an ultimatum to just get it done whatever the risk.
Idrogo wasn’t about to murder Pesina on his own but was allowed to take his pick of hitmen .
He settled on Alfredo Freddie lowe Cardona,a Texas Mafia prospect who just needed to commit a murder to joing the gang .
And Jesse Santi Banez a member of the gang who had been recently demoted for a screw -up and needed a way of rising into the ranks again.
On the night of the murder a lot of stuff went wrong a fifth co- conspirator who was supposed to steal a car for them completely failed.
It would have been smarter to postpone things, but Idrogo was feeling the pressure from Reyes and he decided to go ahead with it.
They used cardona’s sunfire but switched the paper plates out with those from the car of Santi Banez, Cardona grabbed the nine millimeter pistol while Santi banez wielded a shotgun .
Idrogo drove and dropped them off around the corner from the notorious Inc ,then instructed them simply to shoot Pesina when he exited the shop and to hop into the vehicle.
It didn’t quite go so smoothly, Idrogo pulled up and texted Pesina as planned but the gunmen were nowhere in sight, as he approched the car Pesina armed with a pistol sensed something was wrong and began to question Idrogo with an ire of suspicion.
Idrogo told Pecina, he was tired and just wanted to collect Pesina’s dime payment and go home .
All while wondering where the hell Cardona and Santi benez were .
After a few moments ,Idrogo took his foot slightly off the sunfire and when the brake light flickered the gunmen came bursting out ,firing multiple rounds at Pesina , he was struck three times, any one of which could have been fatal on its own.
Afterwards they gave the guns to Reyes for destruction and were told to lay low, Idrogo concerned by both the prospect of being arrested and being murdered as the gang tried to cover its tracks fled to a relatives in Ohio.
But the FBI pole camera had already given authorities the evidence they needed to track down Cardona as a suspect.
He was the first of three to be arrested.
Idrogo’s turn came when authorities raided his mother’s house in San Antonio and promised to turn himself in, he was extradited from Ohio to Texas and decided his time as a gang member was over .
He made a deal with Federal prosecutors admitting to both Billy Padilla and Julian Pesina’s murders and agreed to testify against Santi Banez and Cardona.
On the stand a their trial in 2017, he said Padilla’s murder still hunt him.
Raymond Tellez also offered up his testimony as a part of deal where he admitted murdering four people,two of whom were killed after he became a government informant.
One of them Jose Figueroa was strangled with an X box cord and stabbed to death at a gang meeting with dozens of members present,the three others, Jose Bravo,Adam Trevino and Vincent Chacon were fatally shot for owing money to generals or falling behind on dime payments.
There was just one more piece to the puzzle missing.
Reuben Menace Reyes.
On November 9, 2014 four Texas Mexican Mafia hit men knocked on Reyes door and opened fire when he answered it.
He was hit only once,but required hospitalization,five days later after accepting he was now a target for murder by the gang ,he offered himself up as a government cooperator and dropped perhaps the biggest bombshell yet.
He led them to a remote location in Pearsall Texas on on armadillo road and told the Feds to dig.
On November 19, 2014 exactly where Reyes said they would be authorities uncovered three bodies.
Amazingly Reyes revealed that he killed all three men on the same day and dumped them there all at the same time.
One of them was Johnny smiley Solis,the man Reyes replaced as the Northside lieutenant and Pesina had hused to his advantage in order to gain footing in the Texas Mexican Mafia.
Reyes said that in December 2013 he’d been ordered to kill smiley as well as Texas Mexican Mafia General Carlos worm Chapa and Captain Mark Anthony Bernal aka Lefty for mishandling $ 60,000.000 in Mexicanemi funds and for other questionable leadership decisions.
In fact Texas Department of public safety had learned Bernal’s life might be at risk and attempted to warn him,but he apparently brushed them off…
Reyes wold later plead guilty to the three murders plus Pesinas and be sentenced to multiple life sentences.
In 2017 Santi Banez and Cardona were convicted by Texas Jury that deliberated fo just a couple of hours before returning guilty verdicts on recketeering and murder charges.
On August 15,2018, the day he was sentenced to multiple life terms Santi Banez rose in court to thank his family for their unconditional love by attenting the trial and staying in touch with him during his incarceration.
He then said quote;” i would also like to express and let it be known that i am innocent of these charges and that the government and prosecutors have punished me for exercising my constitutional right to a trial by impeding my every step with a superseding indictment mandatory life i enhancement and false testimony of government witnesses who at trial worthy self- proclaimed authors of this crime”
On that last point it’s hard to argue with Santi Benez while Reyes did receive a life term Tellez and Idrogo both received 20-years prison terms despite admitting participation in multiple murders each.
For Tellez though ,tesifying, testifying against the Texas Mexican Mafia nearly became a death sentence,while incarcerated at GEO facility awaiting trial ,he was stabbed by to gang members who had learned that he was a cooperator.
Tellez survived the attack, sued the facility for failing to protect him and is currently scheduled to be released from Federal prison in 2029.
Before Santi Benez was sentenced U.S District Judge Xavier Rodriguez made one last symbolic gesture,while he still sentenced Santi Benez to life Rodriguez refused to impose a federal law designed to punish people who assault or kill police officers during the performance of their lawful duties ,quote;
” in this case, Pesino was a bad cop”Rodriguez said” he wasn’t realiated against because he was a police officer,he was being retailated against because he failed to tell the Mafia he was a police officer and so they couldn’t trust him anymore…..”