A gang member who threw a gun from a car during a 2018 high-speed police pursuit, and who two days earlier had served as the getaway driver in a San Francisco shooting that left one man dead and a woman grievously injured, was sentenced for a firearms offense in federal court today.
Oscar Guadron Diaz, 24, received a 10 month ‘time served’ prison term having been found guilty by a jury in November 2020 of a single count of possessing a firearm with an altered serial number with respect to the gun tossed from the car.
He awaits what will inevitably be a more severe sentence in a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act case, encompassing the bulk of his violent gang activity, in which he has already pleaded guilty.
“I am going to impose a term of 10 months with credit for time served,” said U.S. District Judge Edward Chen, “mainly because the serious circumstances which the Government has well set forth are going to be fully accounted for in the Judge Orrick sentencing that’s forthcoming.”
“I would like to apologize for my actions, I regret them every day,” Guadron Diaz told the court. “I just want to come home to be a better man for my family and community.”
Diaz’ Norteño co-defendants in the RICO case – each of whom has also pleaded guilty – are Fernando Madrigal and Alvaro Reine Cordero. Madrigral is best known for his poignant call to end gang violence delivered on the steps of City Hall standing beside the mother of a boy he had recently murdered.
On the early evening of January 23 2018 Diaz was driving the Honda HRV from which Alvaro Cordero shot two people, whom they thought to be gang rivals, standing at a San Francisco bus stop near St Mary’s Park.
Duby Ortiz-Guardado, 20, was killed outright. A second victim, a woman, survived after being shot in the face.
Two days later, as SFPD attempted to arrest him, Diaz fled. He led officers on a high-speed chase and, before being apprehended, threw a semi-automatic pistol from the vehicle. That firearm, equipped with an extended magazine, had its serial number illegally altered which formed the basis for the case he was sentenced for today.
During a subsequent search of the home of Diaz’ family members in the Alemenay projects police found a machine gun, ammunition and the skeleton mask Diaz’ wore during the murder. Diaz’ mother told police the automatic weapon was his; officers later found a photo of him holding it.
A further search of Diaz’ home, garage and car uncovered a trove of guns and narcotics, including another automatic weapon, two other ‘ghost guns’, more than a kilogram of marijuana and more than 100 rounds of ammunition.
Diaz was initially granted pretrial release on the charge in this case, prior to being indicted in the RICO case, and court documents state he appeared in Instagram videos with Madrigal posed with weapons
His sentencing in this case is focused on the altered and obliterated serial numbers of the gun he tossed during the chase. He awaits what Judge Chen described today as a likely “very long, very substantial” prison term having pleaded guilty in the RICO matter.
Earlier this year Diaz, along with his co-defendants Fernando Madrigal and Alvaro Reina Cordero pleaded guilty to one count of ‘conspiracy to conduct the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity’. Sentencing in that case – before U.S. District Judge William Orrick – has been outstanding for five months and is currently set for December 7.
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