Teens in Chula Vista bungled cartel hit sentenced to 25 years in federal prison

Two teenage members of a Los Angeles-area street gang were each sentenced to 25 years in prison for their role in two shootings in Chula Vista in 2024 that prosecutors said were a bungled Sinaloan cartel revenge plot.

Johncarlo Quintero, 17, and Andrew Nunez, 16, each pleaded guilty to one murder charge and two attempted murder charges stemming from a violent day that included two shootings in two different locations.

Court records say they were members of a Wilmington street gang and were promised $50,000 to kill a man, who is not named in court records but described as a member or associate of a second drug cartel based in Tijuana.

But the hit was botched. The unidentified man was wounded but survived after he was ambushed in the parking lot of a Chili’s restaurant by the two teens. Hours later the pair, now accompanied by an adult gang member named Ricardo Sanchez, opened fire at the first victim’s home in an attempt to finish the job.

Another man who was there was seriously wounded, but survived. But Sanchez was shot and killed in the gun battle.

The teens were soon arrested, and initially charged in state court as juveniles. But San Diego District Attorney Summer Stephan, in a move that was criticized by juvenile justice advocates in the state, dropped her case — and sent the matter to federal prosecutors.

That’s because state law prohibits prosecuting anyone under 16 years of age in adult court. That meant the two could only be imprisoned until they were 25.

At the time Stephan said handing the case over to federal prosecutors was aimed at stopping adult gang members from using youths to commit violent crimes, knowing that if they were under 16 their age would limit their potential sentence if caught. 

In contrast, federal law has no such ban against prosecuting youths under a certain age.

Quintero and Nunez were prosecuted under the “provocative act” murder doctrine, which holds that one person who tries to kill another can be charged with murder if a third person is killed instead.

Documents filed for the teens’ sentencing by their lawyers and prosecutors provide some new details. Quintero, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, was recruited into the gang when he was about 14 years old, his lawyer wrote.

He was shot once in a drive-by shooting. He also has one prior criminal offense. His lawyer requested that Quintero be housed in a federal juvenile facility until he is 21 years old.

Nunez, who had just turned 15 years old, also had one minor offense on his record. His lawyer said that a string of misfortune — his parents divorced, an aunt died of an overdose, and a friend was murdered — led him to abuse drugs and connect with the gang. 

“This offense was committed because of a misguided and ill-advised effort to belong to the gang and to make money,” defense attorney Antonio Yoon wrote.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ashley Goff said that a 25-year sentence was justified, both to deter cartel violence from spilling over into the U.S. and discourage “gangs and their juvenile members from committing violence based on the idea that they may receive little to no time in custody even if they are caught.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego sought to have Quintero and Nunez treated as adults, leading to months of closed-door hearings in front of U.S. District Court Judge Todd Robinson, who eventually ruled the two should be prosecuted as adults. 

In December both pleaded guilty in the first public hearing in the case.

In February, federal prosecutors indicted three others, all adults, for their role in orchestrating the hit. Records in that case show that the Sinaloa cartel, angered about the theft of a large drug shipment, first tried to kill the unidentified victim in the Chula Vista shooting in December 2023, when he lived in Tijuana.

The cartel, working with contacts in the notorious Mexican Mafia state prison gang, arranged for the Wilmington street gang to carry out the hit.