Reputed Gang Member Gets Three Life Terms for Tattoo Party Murders

A reputed gang member was sentenced Friday to three consecutive terms of life in prison without parole for his role in a shooting after a tattoo party in San Leandro three years ago that left three people dead and three others wounded. Aaron Stewart, 22, of Fairfield, who was sentenced by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy, was one of three reputed members of the Oakland-based Mob Squad who were convicted on April 18 of three counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder for the Oct. 2, 2011 shooting.

Also convicted were 24-year-old Anthony Perry of Oakland, the reputed leader of the gang, and alleged associate Paul Stevenson, 23, of Oakland. In addition to the murder and attempted murder counts, the three men were convicted of the special circumstance of committing multiple murders, an outcome mandating that they all face life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutor Jimmie Wilson told jurors during the trial for the three men that the shooting, which took place in a parking lot outside a warehouse in the 2600 block of Alvarado Street in San Leandro, was “a gang-related assassination.” The alleged Mob Squad members targeted a member of the rival FE gang because they were upset about a confrontation with the other group at a San Francisco nightclub several months earlier, he said. Wilson said the instigator of the shooting was Perry, who he said is the leader of the Mob Squad gang and is known as “A-1” and “A-Uno.”

Wilson said Perry, Stewart and Stevenson saw 23-year-old Joshua Alford of Oakland at the tattoo party and decided to kill him because he belonged to the FE gang and had been present at the earlier confrontation in San Francisco. Guns were pulled out and displayed in the San Francisco incident but no shots were fired and there weren’t any fights, Wilson said. After the tattoo party ended, Perry, Stewart and Stevenson all armed themselves with guns, surrounded a green Ford Explorer that had been blocked from leaving the warehouse’s parking lot by another car and opened fire, Wilson said.

In addition to Alford, the shooting claimed the lives of 16-year-old Leneasha Northington, a student at San Leandro High School, and 19-year-old Shanice Kiel of San Francisco, who had been accepted at San Francisco State University. Three other people who were inside the Ford Explorer were wounded and another person was uninjured. A fourth man, Stanley Turner, 21, of Oakland, faced the same charges that the other three defendants faced but last December he entered into a plea agreement with prosecutors that called for him to be found guilty of a lesser charge and receive a light sentence in return for his testimony against the other three men.

Stevenson’s lawyer, Alex Selvin, argued that Perry and Stewart were the only shooters in the case and claimed there’s no reliable evidence that Stevenson fired any shots. Thomas Broome, Stewart’s lawyer during the trial, said Stewart didn’t fire any shots because his gun jammed. Darryl Stallworth, who represented Perry during the trial but was fired by Perry after he was convicted, said he believed there were only two shooters in the incident and Perry wasn’t one of them. Stevenson was sentenced to three consecutive terms of life in prison without parole on Oct. 2 and Perry, who represented himself after he fired Stallworth, received the same sentence on Oct. 9.

—By Bay City News

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