Ukrainian Gang from Christian Families Convicted in Sacramento
Based on materials from the Sacramento Bee newspaper.
All the accused come from religious families, and one of them is even the son of a Baptist church pastor.
Over the past two years, a trial took place in Sacramento against the so-called Eastern European street gang “White Rock Park,” composed mainly of Ukrainians. At present, sentence has been passed on three of the four Ukrainians who were arrested back in 2009. The charges included orchestrating beatings, theft and robbery, as well as drunk driving and attempting to evade police pursuit. The investigation classified the criminals’ actions as gang participation, which significantly aggravated the charges against them. The case gained particular significance because it was the first time a Ukrainian ethnic gang had appeared in Sacramento. However, according to defense lawyers, this fact is disputed, as insufficient evidence was gathered that they truly formed a single organized criminal group.
The sentences were handed down under the state’s street terrorism law. The Street Terrorism Enforcement and Protection Act, or STEP, became an important step in the fight for order on the streets. STEP significantly toughens penalties for crimes committed in conspiracy. The law was adopted in California over 20 years ago and has since been applied to such major street gangs as the African-American Bloods and Crips, the Latino 38th Street and 18th Street, the Asian United Bamboo and Big Circle, or white racist gangs Sacramaniacs and Nazi Low Riders. Under the STEP law, criminal groups of immigrants from Russia and Armenia had already been tried, but the “step” reached Ukrainians for the first time.
According to the defense, the young Ukrainians were deemed a gang in order to make an example of them by using this law. Despite the fact that at the very start of the proceedings Sacramento California Superior Court Judge Patricia Esgro agreed with the defense’s arguments that the defendants did not constitute a “classic street gang,” the court still considered their “pattern of criminal behavior” and “intimidation factor” to be characteristic of an organized gang. The judge also emphasized that the arrested Ukrainians acted as a group, tattooed symbolic five-dot marks on their hands representing their prison past, and used coded gestures when communicating with each other, which is also typical of a street gang.
Many of their criminal acts and intimidation of other residents of the Slavic community were committed jointly. As the Sacramento Bee newspaper reports, all the accused come from religious families, and one of them is even the son of a Baptist church pastor. 25‑year‑old Yuri Mishchuk received 5 years in prison for witness intimidation, 23‑year‑old Stanislav Dezhnyuk was sentenced to 180 days in prison and 5 years of probation, 22‑year‑old Maksim Yemchuk awaits sentencing soon. The fourth defendant, 22‑year‑old Aleksandr Melnichuk, was released because key witnesses and victims were absent at the decisive moment of the trial.
The trial of Melnichuk, Yemchuk, Dezhnyuk and Mishchuk began as early as August 11, 2009. The hearings started with testimony from deputy sheriff Burke Stirns. He told the court that he knew this group well and all their antics. According to him, the idea that the young troublemakers had united into a street gang came to him on October 12, 2006, when a dozen Ukrainians brawled with another “ethnic group,” and all four defendants took part in that fight. It was Stirns who noticed the identical tattoos and symbolic gestures among the members of the “Ukrainian street gang.”
After three were convicted and four more Ukrainians were brought to trial, said Burke Stirns in an interview with the Sacramento Bee, the activity of the Ukrainian street gang in Rancho Cordova “has almost stopped.” In his words, “there are no more attacks on the streets, no more calls to the police,” and “it looks like locking up these guys became a catalyst” for order. Prosecutor Steve Harrold called Stirns “the author of this case,” but recognizing two dozen minor Ukrainian delinquents as a street gang under the STEP law raised some doubts among community activists, legal scholars, and even law enforcement officers. After all, the Crips and Bloods have thousands of members and a combat record of drug trafficking and murders, while here it was mostly bruises.
After serving their prison sentences, the convicted also face deportation.
Source drugoe.us
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