A 29-year-old man convicted in the fatal shooting of a drug dealer in Placentia, an attack allegedly orchestrated from prison by the reputed head of the Orange County branch of the Mexican Mafia , has won a new trial based on violations of his Miranda rights.

Augustine Velasquez was sentenced on June 2, 2023, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the Jan. 19, 2017, killing of 35-year-old Robert Rios.

Velasquez was the only defendant in the attack convicted in Orange County Superior Court. The rest of the defendants allegedly involved were charged in federal court and are awaiting trial.

The case was beset by multiple legal problems in state court before federal prosecutors picked it up in a wide-ranging racketeering case against the Orange County chapter of the Mexic

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