Lennox gang member, 55, gets 10 years for racketeering

Baldemiro "Pana" Ulloa, 55, was one of about two-dozen people linked to the Lennox 13 gang who were rounded up in January 2011 at the culmination of an investigation of extortion and narcotics trafficking in the small unincorporated area east of Los Angeles International Airport. Ulloa pleaded guilty last year to one count of racketeering conspiracy, acknowledging his membership in Lennox 13 and admitted having sold an ounce of methamphetamine and extorting $100 from another street-level drug dealer in the neighborhood. U.S. District Judge A. Howard Matz said Ulloa was a "career offender" with a multiple-page rap sheet covering "a lifetime of numerous violations" and "so many aliases I haven't even bothered to count them up." Despite that, Ulloa has spent less than five years in jail, prior to the current case, Matz said. Arguing for a prison term of no more than five years, defense attorney Humberto Diaz attempted to Advertisement show that Ulloa was just part of the fabric of daily life in Lennox. Arriving in Southern California 40 years ago from Puerto Rico by way of New York, Ulloa "knows everybody in Lennox -- the good people and the bad people," Diaz said. Diaz told Matz that he drove to the neighborhood and could not find a single person who would speak ill of Ulloa. In fact, Diaz said, his client was widely praised by everyone he encountered. "The sense of the people encountered in Lennox was that Mr. Ulloa was needed in the community, and that he was going to be missed," according to the defense attorney. Assistant U.S. Attorney Xochitl Arteaga, arguing for a far longer sentence, said Ulloa's drug and extortion offenses were "part and parcel" of the racketeering conspiracy. Ulloa, she said, was "observed in the park doing many hand-to-hand (drug) transactions." As for the $100 taken from another dealer, "they pay because of the threats," Arteaga said. In his statement to Matz, Ulloa acknowledged dealing methamphetamine in the park, but said he did it for one day only because of a financial crisis. "I needed to pay my rent," Ulloa said. "I don't like people dealing meth."