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Jury sends message on gang violence

Jurors convict an 18-year-old of gunning down two other young men in what was called a gang-related fight in February.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published August 18, 2006

TAMPA - Michael Roberts and Sebastian Luengas were no angels. They dropped out of Leto High School, got in trouble with the law and ran with a gun-toting group that looked for fights.

None of which justified their premature deaths Feb. 20, a jury decided Thursday.

One woman and five men issued a mandate on gang-related violence by finding Brian Joseph Lima guilty of manslaughter for shooting Roberts and Luengas and aggravated assault for putting seven other teenagers in fear of their lives.

The manslaughter charges alone carry up to 30 years in prison. Lima, 18, will be sentenced Sept. 25.

"This was gang warfare," prosecutor Barbara Coleman said during her closing argument. "As ugly as it sounds, that's what we had that day."

The events of Feb. 20 illustrated the worst of what Hillsborough Sheriff David Gee has said is an emerging problem in the county. He has made gang prevention and enforcement a focus of his first term.

Tension had escalated between the Bloods and TNC Boys for weeks. Authorities said Lima was affiliated with the Bloods which he denied and Roberts, 20, and Luengas, 16, were part of the TNC Boys, a group of teens who had grown up together in Town 'N Country.

The night's trouble began when a carload of Bloods drove by the TNC Boys, taunting them to come to their neighborhood for a fight.

According to testimony, Roberts fired a handgun in the air. One of his friends caught the flashes from the shots on his video camera.

The TNC Boys drove to the Bloods' part of town. They threw rocks and bricks toward the home of Freddie Vasquez Jr., another Bloods member.

Lima's attorney, Kenneth Littman, argued his client thought he heard a gun fired in his direction and feared for his life. Along with Vasquez, he fired warning shots to scare off the crowd, Littman said. Vasquez is charged with second-degree murder and aggravated assault but has not yet gone to trial.

Lima sprayed buckshot at the teenagers as they took off running, Coleman said.

"These boys were shot in the back," she said. "These boys were shot as they ran away."

Those words were too much for Sebastian's mother, Angelica Luengas. She walked quickly out of the courtroom, fighting back tears as she had done many times during the four-day trial.

In the front of the courtroom, Roberts' older sisters, Linda Sicignano and Heather Austin, wore black sunglasses to hide their wet eyes.

Once the verdicts were announced, they no longer had to mask their emotions. Off came their dark suit jackets, revealing red T-shirts that read "My Little Brother Was Murdered."

Sicignano, 29, said her brother was foolish for carrying a gun. But he wasn't a punk or a gang member, she said.

She believed his friends had learned a lesson from the senseless deaths.

"It's a lesson that I hope all kids learn from this, that you don't go looking for a fight," she said to the TV cameras.

The cameras moved on. Sicignano put her hand on the shoulder of one of her brother's friends. A tough-looking guy, he wore baggy jeans, a black ball cap turned backward and black shades.

Behind them, he was crying.

Colleen Jenkins can be reached at (813) 226-3337 or cjenkins@sptimes.com.

[Last modified August 18, 2006, 05:41:55]