High School football player murdered by gangsters, killers convicted

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Gabriel Soto, 21, is shown in photos provided by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. (KABC)

LOS ANGELES — A jury has convicted three men in the 2013 slaying of a former Garfield High School football player who was playing football on scholarship at Lincoln University in Missouri.

Jonathon Joseph Gonzalez, 30, Roque Solis, 32, and Anthony Aaron Gabriel, 27, all of Los Angeles, were each convicted yesterday of one count of first-degree murder, one count of willful, deliberate, and premeditated attempted murder and four counts of assault with a firearm. The jury found true gang and firearm allegations for all three defendants.

Deputy District Attorney Hilary Williams of the Hardcore Gang Division said Gonzalez also was convicted of one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.

Sentencing is scheduled for March 26 in Department 102 at the Foltz Criminal Justice Center. The defendants all face two consecutive sentences of life in prison.

On May 25, 2013, the trio drove to a home in East Los Angeles where Gabriel Soto, 21, was reuniting with a few of his former high school athlete friends, the prosecutor said. The three defendants were seeking to shoot a witness in an unrelated gang case, according to evidence presented at trial.

While defendant Gabriel waited in their vehicle, Gonzalez and Solis exited the car, crept up on the group and opened fire at the gathering, the prosecutor added. Soto, who was not the intended target, was killed and another man was injured.

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