news-record.com

CHARLOTTE (AP) — A federal jury has recommended the death sentence for a gang member convicted of killing two brothers in Greensboro in 2007.

The Charlotte Observer reported that the jury recommended death Wednesday for 25-year-old Alejandro Umana. Umana was convicted last week in Charlotte in the deaths of Ruben Garcia Salinas and Manuel Garcia Salinas. Both were killed Dec. 8, 2007, at Las Jarochitas restaurant at 3738 High Point Road in Greensboro.

Chief U.S. District Judge Bob Conrad must follow the jurors' recommendation and impose the death sentence. Umana probably will be sentenced in the next few months.

Authorities say Umana, a former resident of Greensboro, was a member of an MS-13 cell in Charlotte, which they say was part of an international organization whose crimes included murder, robbery, racketeering and extortion.

Witnesses testified at trial that Umana was a veteran member of the MS-13 who had illegally traveled from El Salvador to Los Angeles, New York and eventually Greensboro. Testimony established that in the fall of 2007 he was asked by MS-13 members in prison in El Salvador to assist in re-organizing the Charlotte MS-13 members so that they could better control the drug trade as well as extort and attack rival gang members in North Carolina.

Testimony revealed that on Dec. 8, 2007, while in a restaurant in Greensboro, Umana used a gun to shoot Ruben Salinas fatally in the chest and Manuel Salinas in the head after they "disrespected" his gang signs by calling them "fake." Umana fired three more shots as restaurant patrons scurried for cover, with one witness running to protect her infant child. One other individual was injured by the gunfire.

Umana later escaped to Charlotte with the assistance of other MS-13 members, where he was arrested on Dec.12, 2007, in possession of a loaded Ruger, later determined to be the murder weapon.

Umana was also found by the jury at the sentencing phase to have been responsible for three other murders in Los Angeles, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.