Death Sentence Handed To Killer Who Allegedly Threatened Temecula Prosecutor

A Riverside jury today recommended a death sentence for a gang member who shot a man to death on a Moreno Valley street during an argument over a stolen computer.

The defendant was also accused in a testimonial of threatening a Riverside County deputy district attorney who lives with his family in Temecula.

Robert Gonzales Castro, 35, was convicted last month of first-degree murder, and jurors found true special circumstance allegations of killing during the commission of a robbery and having a prior murder conviction.

The same jury that found him guilty of the crimes deliberated less than a day before recommending capital punishment.

Castro is scheduled to be sentenced by Riverside County Superior Court Judge Richard Fields on Feb. 21. The defense is expected to argue for a sentence reduction to life without the possibility of parole. A judge in a capital case has discretion to set aside a jury's recommendation, but such instances are rare.

The defendant killed Juan Genaro Gonzalez on May 18, 2008, during a verbal altercation that turned physical outside a house on Atwood Avenue.

According to trial testimony, Castro had arranged to sell Gonzalez a laptop computer taken during a burglary, but at the last minute, the victim declined to go ahead with the deal.

An argument erupted as Gonzalez sat in his car, speaking with Castro through the open window, prosecutors said. The defendant struck the victim across the head with a 9mm handgun, prompting Gonzalez to get out of his car, at which point Castro shot him point-blank in the heart, according to testimony.

The defendant was arrested less than a week later after fatally shooting a Fontana resident, 58-year-old Ronald Saxton, who encountered Castro and an accomplice crawling out a window to his house as he went to dump some trash.

Castro was convicted and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in 2010 for that killing.

According to prosecutors, the defendant has an extensive criminal background, beginning with his admittance to a Pomona gang in the early 1990s.

The original deputy district attorney assigned to prosecute him for the Gonzalez murder, Mike Hestrin, testified on Dec. 6 that Castro threatened his life.

Hestrin said the defendant sent him a letter with two photos of an inmate who had been repeatedly slashed in the face. The victim was a domestic violence suspect locked in the same cell block with Castro at the Southwest Detention Center in Murrieta.

Below one of the pictures read a message saying "You are next, Michael."

When asked what he believed that to mean, Hestrin replied, "That Mr. Castro wanted me to look just like the man whose face had been sliced up."

The Temecula resident said he feared the defendant's Mexican Mafia associates would try to assault him or his family. Hestrin received 24-hour protection for more than a week. --City News Service