Prosecutors will no longer seek death penalty in the Anthony Avalos torture case
A memorial for Anthony Avalos at the home of his David and Maria Barron in California City, Calif., on Aug. 2, 2019. The Barrons are the aunt and uncle of Avalos.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
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Prosecutors will no longer seek the death penalty for the mother of Anthony Avalos and her boyfriend, who are accused of torturing the 10-year-old Lancaster boy for days before his death in 2018, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón’s office confirmed Saturday.
A grand jury indicted Heather Maxine Barron, 31, and Kareem Ernesto Leiva, 35, in October 2018 on charges that they murdered the boy and abused two other children in the household.
It marks the second high-profile case in which the assigned prosecutors have publicly objected to the death penalty being dropped as a potential punishment. Deputy District Attorneys Garrett Dameron that he and fellow prosecutor Geoff Lewin had been ordered to remove the death penalty as punishment consideration in the case of Michael Christopher Mejia, who is awaiting trial on charges stemming from the 2017 killings of Whittier Police Officer Keith Boyer and Mejia s own cousin.
Along with the murder charge, Barron and Leiva are facing two counts of child abuse involving two other children in the home. Leiva is also facing an allegation that he personally inflicted great bodily injury on one of the youngsters in circumstances involving domestic violence.
Multi-Day Operation by Human Trafficking Task Force Leads to the Recovery of Three Minors and Multiple Arrests Details Written by IVN
Los Angeles, California - On behalf of the Los Angeles Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in the San Gabriel Valley, the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, Kristi K. Johnson, and Chief Michael Ellis of the Pomona Police Department, announced the results of last week’s multi-day operation, which included the recovery of three children.
During the week of April 19 - 23, members of the Los Angeles Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in the San Gabriel Valley conducted an operation along the East Holt Avenue corridor in Pomona, a known “track,” a term commonly used to describe a location for commercial sex trafficking. The Task Force is comprised of members from the Pomona Police Department’s SET Team (Sexual Exploitation & Trafficking Team), the Los
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Many of them were trapped at home with their abusers. Their stories were similar.
“The money stopped and there was no place for them to go and they were around each other all day and it just blew up,” Lockwood said. “That’s what we heard from a lot of the women.”
Some of Long Beach’s domestic violence shelters and mental health organizations said they saw an increase in need last year in the pandemic, but they fear that more abuse likely went unreported as victims were unable to get away from their abusers to call for help during lockdown.
LA Human Trafficking Operation Leads to Recovery of 3 Girls and 11 Arrests
A Los Angeles-based human trafficking and child exploitation task force has rescued three teenagers and arrested nearly a dozen people during a multi-day operation in Pomona, authorities said.
“Two females who appeared to be very young were observed as they engaged with vehicles occupied by lone males,” the Pomona Police Department said in a news release. “Both were contacted by members of the Task Force. One of the females was identified as a fourteen-year-old who had been reported missing; she is six months pregnant. The second female was identified as a sixteen-year-old.”