Street vendor activists who were arrested last year for violent actions at protests have been sentenced and released from jail in San Bernardino County. But Edin Enamorado, one of the 'Justice 8,' continues to plead his innocence from jail.
The group faced charges of conspiracy, assault and false imprisonment stemming from three incidents in Sep. 2023. They assaulted a security guard outside of a grocery store in Pomona on Sep. 3, proceeded to allegedly intimidate and humiliate another man outside of his Pomona home earlier that day and then a man outside of a car wash in Victorville on Sep. 23.
Under a June plea deal agreement, six of the eight defendants — Stephanie Amesquita, Vanessa Carrasco, David Chavez, Fernando Lopez, Wendy Lujan and Edwin Peña — were all convicted of a single felony assault charge. The rest of their charges were dropped.
The women defendants were sentenced to probation, while the male defendants (Chavez, Pena and Lopez) received two-year state prison terms, but were released on parole with credit for time served.
Another defendant, Gullit Acevedo, had all felony charges dismissed and is expected to have his misdemeanor assault charge dropped as well.
Enamorado earlier this year refused a plea deal because he’s undocumented. Damon Alimouri, who is Enamorado’s attorney, says he’ll attempt to work out an “immigration safe” deal with the District Attorney’s office. If that doesn’t work, he says his client is willing to go to trial.
“It’s absolutely paramount that we resolve this case in such a way that we avoid a potential for deportation,” said Alimouri.
Alimouri unsuccessfully assisted Enamorado in filing several legal motions, including a Brady motion challenging the prosecution's evidence and a writ of habeas corpus contesting his no-bail hold order. They also appealed to the California Supreme Court, but the court declined to hear the case.
Despite the setbacks, Alimouri says Enamorado remains strong and optimistic, even after being incarcerated for over a year.
“A lot of folks have been commenting that he has faced many no's,” said Alimouri. “Despite that, he's going to go all the way.”
The District Attorney’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment in time for broadcast and publication.
Meanwhile, Enamorado’s partner and co-defendant, Wendy Lujan, says the experience of being incarcerated was horrible and eye opening. She says she lost her bus driving job and was forced to move back to LA.
“When we were incarcerated, we had to make the decision of letting go of our apartment, because we didn't know how long we're going to be in there,” said Lujan.
Despite her conviction, Lujan thinks she did nothing wrong and is now committed to carrying out Enamorado’s activism.
“I hear people saying…’Oh, well, you know, we should do things differently, or we should have been doing things differently,’” said Lujan. “We were always helping the vendors. We were always helping those in need…So I'm not going to sit there and say our approach should be different.”
L.A. Taco reporter Janette Villafana contributed to this story
