El Cajon Gang Member Caught Selling Meth to Informant Gets Life in Prison

SAN DIEGO, CA — A 53-year-old West Coast Crips gang member from El Cajon was sentenced Tuesday morning in San Diego federal court to life in prison for multiple drug-related crimes.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego stated in a news release that it sought an enhanced sentence against Randy Alton Graves — raising his mandatory minimum sentence to life in prison — based on his "egregious conduct over decades." At the sentencing hearing, the court noted that Graves has more than a dozen felony and misdemeanor convictions from 1976 to 2012, ranging from voluntary manslaughter to gun crimes to multiple drug offenses.

The sentencing followed Graves' conviction by a federal jury April 4 of conspiracy to distribute more than 50 grams of methamphetamine; conspiracy to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana; and possession with intent to distribute more than 50 grams of methamphetamine. Graves' trial lasted five days and the jury deliberated for about three hours before returning its verdict.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw noted during Tuesday's sentencing that he also considered Graves’ role in the murder of a government witness, sex trafficking, possession of firearms and other instances of drug dealing in determining that a life sentence was appropriate — even without a mandatory minimum requirement.

According to evidence presented at trial, Graves sold methamphetamine to a confidential informant on four occasions between August and October of 2013, prosecutors said. During the trial, jurors heard intercepted phone calls in which Graves allegedly recruited three men to travel to Lompoc, California, to unload a boat carrying 5,000 pounds of marijuana from Mexico. Federal prosecutors also showed evidence obtained when a search warrant was served on Graves’ residence, during which investigators allegedly found him in possession of 79 grams of meth — being stored in his refrigerator — and two loaded guns.

Graves was initially indicted in June 2014 with racketeering charges connected to the West Coast Crips criminal street gang, including several homicides and drug and sex trafficking crimes. But the case was severed from the larger racketeering trial and Graves proceeded to trial only on certain drug charges, according to Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jose Castillo and Stephen Wong, who prosecuted the case.

Agencies that collaborated to bring a guilty verdict in the case included the FBI’s East County Regional Gang Task Force and the Violent Crimes Gang Task Force; the San Diego Police Department’s gang and homicide units; the ATF; the El Cajon Police Department; the La Mesa Police Department; San Diego County Probation; the IRS; U.S. Postal Inspectors; the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department; and the California Highway Patrol.

The investigation was coordinated by an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, which was created to consolidate and coordinate all law enforcement resources in the country's battle against major drug trafficking rings, drug kingpins and money launderers.

Last week, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced another West Coast Crips gang member, 32-year-old Wilbert Ross of Chula Vista, was sentenced to life in prison in a case involving three other defendants.

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