Nuestra Familia, Our Family

Informant Daniel Hernandez, right, photo FBI

By JULIA REYNOLDS and GEORGE B. SANCHEZ
Herald Staff Writers

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Justice Department's star witness in its costliest gang prosecution ever will soon walk free, despite admitting he committed numerous crimes while on the government's payroll, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

At the request of government prosecutors, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer sentenced informant and former Nuestra Familia leader Daniel Fred Hernandez, 42, to 54 months in federal custody. After deducting the 49 months Hernandez has served and credit for good behavior, Hernandez will likely be free as soon as officials can calculate his release date, according to his attorney Michael Murray.

"Four and a half years ago, I made a deal that changed my life," Hernandez told the court. Sporting a horseshoe-sized moustache and a shaved head covered in tattoos, Hernandez stood with his hands behind his back.

Despite threats on his life for informing against the gang, he continued, "I stand here knowing I made the only correct decision that could be made."

For seven months in 2001, Hernandez lived a freewheeling lifestyle as he helped prosecutors build their racketeering case against leaders and regiments of the Nuestra Familia criminal organization.

With his approval and the FBI's knowledge, an arsenal of weapons was passed out to the "youngsters" of Salinas that was never retrieved or reported to local police, according to FBI reports and transcripts of Hernandez's conversations with another gang member. At least three of those weapons have been used in other crimes. Others are believed to still be on the streets of the Salinas Valley today.

The informant

Nearly five years ago, Hernandez faced life in prison when he pleaded guilty to the same racketeering charges faced by dozens of other Nuestra Familia gang leaders in an investigation called Operation Black Widow.

But Hernandez signed an agreement with federal prosecutor Robert Mueller, now director of the FBI, saying his sentence was likely to be dropped if he wore a wire and informed on the gang's activities for the FBI.

Hernandez was given a salary, an apartment, a car and phones as he wore a wire and organized gang meetings from Santa Rosa to Salinas that were taped by the FBI.

He set up government-approved drug and gun deals that led to the indictment of more than a dozen Nuestra Familia leaders in a $10 million racketeering case that ultimately netted 22 co-defendants on more than two dozen charges.

But he also continued his own criminal activity that the FBI was not aware of.

In violation of his agreement with the government, Hernandez had secret conversations with members of Salinas' Nuestra Familia regiment that he never reported. He sold and used marijuana, pocketed thousands in illicit gang proceeds, drove a stolen car and sold pounds of methamphetamine that made its way to the streets of Stockton.

Gang investigators and attorneys for other defendants in the Operation Black Widow case say he gave a "green light" to kill a gang rival at Cap's Saloon in Salinas.

In the five years since Operation Black Widow began with 11 indictments on the courthouse steps in Salinas, Hernandez has never had to take the witness stand, despite the fact that his reports and tapes were the government's principal evidence in the case.

Defense lawyers and some district attorneys say that because his behavior was illegal and embarrassing, prosecutors went to great lengths to keep him from testifying. In fact, none of the cases he helped bring forward has gone to trial -- all 22 defendants in the federal racketeering case have pleaded guilty, as did seven men and women in Monterey County court who were associated with the Nuestra Familia's Salinas regiment.

Federal prosecutors acknowledge they hastily cobbled together flawed plea agreements on the eve of trial in San Francisco. Those plea agreements, with the gang's top five leaders, were challenged by the state of California and, a year later, held up the defendants' final sentencing until today.

Despite the risks, many in law enforcement defend the use of criminal informants like Hernandez as a necessary evil in police work.

"My understanding is that he was probably the highest-ranking Nuestra Familia member outside of Pelican Bay (State Prison) to cooperate with law enforcement," said Monterey County Deputy District Attorney Pam Ham, who helped prosecute the Cap's Saloon case.

Hernandez corroborated much of the information gathered by the Salinas police and the District Attorney's Office on the Salinas regiment of the Nuestra Familia at the time, Ham said.

He provided extensive documentation, including taped phone conversations, that helped the District Attorney's Office establish the full extent of the gang conspiracy involved in the murder of Raymond Sanchez.

Hernandez, who was born in Pittsburg, has a violent history that includes assaults with deadly weapons, taking part in murder plots and plotting with fellow gang members about killing two Santa Clara County district attorneys. In grand jury testimony in 2000, a former cellmate said Hernandez ordered 17 gang-related stabbings while in prison. In one prison fight, he left his battered victim lying in a sea of blood.

'Playing golf'

He worked as an FBI informant for seven months in 2001. But by late June 2001, information from other informants began to emerge that Hernandez had not been truthful with his FBI handlers. When confronted, Hernandez admitted he had slipped away without permission on three occasions in April to "play golf in Stockton."

He later admitted his "golf" trip actually was to deliver 2 pounds of methamphetamine to a cousin. Court records show that meth made its way to the street.

He also admitted receiving about $7,000 in drug sale and other criminal proceeds from gang members, and to participating in other drug deals.

According to FBI reports, Hernandez allowed his Salinas regiment commander, Armando Santa Cruz, to distribute more than a dozen weapons of all calibers to young gang members in town. One of those was Armando Frias, the gunman in the Cap's Saloon murder. In addition, two other young men received guns and within months used the weapons in a murder and an attempted murder, respectively. Salinas police sources say the FBI never notified them that the guns were being passed out in the streets of their city.

By late July, the Bureau stopped working with the problematic Hernandez, and he was arrested on a parole violation.

On Nov. 30, 2001, FBI agents overseeing Hernandez wrote in one of their final reports: "Source (Hernandez) participated in unauthorized criminal activity while under the direction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation."

Hernandez was never charged with crimes he admitted committing while on the FBI's payroll.

Hernandez was paid $52,200 for his government service.

At his federal sentencing, Hernandez read from a prepared statement.

"I figured I'd better write it down because I talk so much," he said.

"Your decision today," he told the judge, "will allow me to be a father to my child and a husband to my wife."

"I want to continue my life as a changed man... and to contribute to the community in which I live."