*NEWS RELEASE*
JURY FINDS MAN SHOULD BE PUT TO DEATH FOR 2004 GANG-EXECUTION MURDER

RIVERSIDE - A Riverside County jury on Friday, Sept. 11, 2009, found that a Riverside man should be put to death for the 2004 gang-execution killing of Jorge Ortiz.

George Anthony Hernandez Jr, 33, was convicted by the same jury on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2009, of first-degree murder with a special circumstance of lying in wait. He was also convicted of conspiracy to commit a crime and soliciting to commit murder.

Jurors began deliberating Hernandez's fate on Thursday afternoon and reached their decision mid-afternoon Friday.

"Gang violence continues to plague our community," said District Attorney Rod Pacheco. "Without tough, aggressive investigations and prosecutions like this one, we will never rid our community of this plague. Fortunately, the jury did the right thing in this case."

The case, RIF119969, was prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin and Deputy District Attorney Nik Peterson.

"I thought the jury was courageous in their decision," Hestrin said. "This was a Mexican Mafia execution and a brutal, brutal crime. For five years the family of the victim has had to wonder whether anyone cared. Today they got justice."

On July 26, 2004, Hernandez and the victim left a Riverside bar together and Hernandez invited Ortiz to "check out his new Impala." Ortiz leaned into the car and Hernandez shot Ortiz through the top of his head. As the victim fell back, Hernandez shot him in the forehead, then three more times in the chest.

The investigation revealed the shooting was a gang hit at the direction of either the Mexican Mafia or the Arlanza 13 criminal street gang in Riverside, of which Hernandez is a documented member. Ortiz was executed because he was believed to have been a snitch.

After Hernandez's arrest, investigators uncovered an illicit affair between Hernandez and a female sheriff's deputy who was assigned to the Robert Presley Detention Center where the defendant was housed. There is evidence that the now-former deputy, Angela Parks assisted Hernandez in a conspiracy to murder the witnesses against him in the Ortiz murder trial, as well as for her to smuggle methamphetamine into the jail for Hernandez. Parks was arrested and is facing charges including conspiracy to solicit to commit murder. She was held to answer at a 2005 preliminary hearing and is still awaiting trial.

Hernandez is scheduled to return to Dept. 44 at the Hall of Justice in Riverside before Judge Paul Zellerbach at 8:30 a.m., Dec. 11, 2009, to be formally sentenced.