A Sonoma County judge Thursday handed down a prison sentence for the first of the former Matthew Toste murder defendants and issued a solemn lecture about the pitfalls of gang life.
Raul Leon Lopez-Granados, 22 of Santa Rosa, received 16 months for his role in Toste's 2006 slaying in a downtown Santa Rosa parking garage and another four years for a previous shooting at the Fountaingrove Inn.
With credit for time already served, he'll be out in about a year, his lawyer said.
Judge Lawrence Antolini admonished the high school dropout with a history of violence to turn his life around and make a positive contribution so that "some good could come out of this terrible tragedy."
Lopez-Granados, a member of the Norte? street gang, stared ahead in silence. A bailiff instructed him to remove his hands from inside the front of his pants while the judge spoke but he put them back moments later.
"Mr. Lopez-Granados, you're 22 years old. You're young and have a life ahead of you," Antolini said. "One of the victims has no life. What you do from now on is your call."
"I hope there's remorse within you and you really want to change," Antolini said.
Lopez-Granados was one of five defendants indicted for murder in the Dec. 3, 2006 shooting of 32-year-old Toste, a construction worker and single father. The men were accused of making lewd comments to women Toste was with, provoking a fight with Toste and killing him.
Just before trial, Lopez-Granados and two other defendants pleaded to lesser charges of being accessories to the crime and gang participation. His cousin, Joseph Lopez Jr., 21, was later convicted by a jury of second-degree murder. One of the original five, Paul Whiterock, 30, was acquitted of all charges.
Lopez Jr. is expected to be sentenced next month to life in prison.
Lopez-Granados, Lopez Jr. and another Toste case defendant, Nicholas Mejia, 32, were implicated in a Nov. 16, 2006 shooting at the Fountaingrove Inn involving the same .32-caliber gun used to kill Toste.
In that case, Justin Lawrence of San Rafael told police he was shot in the chest by Lopez Jr. after he was confronted by Lopez and Lopez-Granados about where he was from. Lopez-Granados pleaded to a count of assault with a deadly weapon.
At his sentencing Thursday, Antolini denied a request from Lopez-Granados' lawyer, Geoffrey Dunham, to allow his client to enter a residential program arranged by Sonoma County Indian Health.
Lopez-Granados' probation report said his in-custody behavior included a group attack last summer on another inmate who had asked him to play basketball. A search of his cell last month turned up a "kite" or jail note listing all Norte? gang members in his section.
The probation report warns that Lopez-Granados was guided by a pack mentality and would continue to be a danger if released. His presence in the two crimes was not "some random chance meeting of violence that is unlikely to happen again," the report said.
It said Lopez-Granados has "internalized the more egregious and criminally deviant" aspects of gang lifestyle.
"The defendant has proven himself capable of assisting in the murder of another human being with little apparent remorse," the report said.
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