State Courts

1998 gang feud implicated for violence in Wichita

By Ron Sylvester

A made-up gang story resulted in the killing of Tony Galvan in 1998, and prosecutors say it’s still causing deaths in Wichita.

The Galvan killing came up again during a murder trial today in Sedgwick County District Court. Prosecutor C.J. Rieg told a jury today that Rogelio Soto Jr. and two others stabbed Arturo Moreno more than 70 times over the Galvan killing.

Rieg said Moreno was drinking with Soto and three other men, including Soto, in March 2009. Rieg said men became angry when they overheard a phone conversation in which Moreno, 28, said he’d been involved in the Galvan murder.

For the defense, Brian Hitchcock said only one of some 30 witnesses can link Soto, then 16, to the killing.

Galvan was not a gang member. But he was killed by gang members seeking revenge for a car accident, that a 17-year-old claimed was caused by a rival gang. That youth, Daniel Medrano, later confessed he’d made the story up.

The trial is expected to last most of the week before Judge David Kaufman.

Full post as published by What the Judge Ate for Breakfast on September 28, 2010 (boomark / email).