Youth Gets 16 Years to Life in Prison for Murder : Crime: Ex-Ventura High track star Jesse Conchas killed a rival who damaged his car. He had been involved with a Christian group as well as a street gang.

A former Ventura High School track star who drifted into gang activity was sentenced Monday to 16 years to life in state prison for the murder of a teen-age rival who smashed the defendant’s car windows days before the killing.

Jesse Conchas, 18, who was a B-plus student and Youth for Christ recruiter while lettering in two sports at Ventura High, hung his head as Superior Court Judge James M. McNally imposed the tougher of two possible sentences.

“The man killed was completely unable to defend himself,” McNally said before imposing the sentence. “The nature of the wound was inconsistent with a fight.”

McNally, who heard arguments Friday from the prosecution and the defense, could have sentenced Conchas to the California Youth Authority, where he would have been released on his 25th birthday.

The judge decided Friday to consider the question of sentencing over the weekend because of the seriousness of the case. McNally ruled Monday that Conchas will spend the first seven years of his sentence at CYA but would be transferred to state prison when he turns 25.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Holmes said the sentence was tough but fair.

“Hopefully it will send a message to gang members that we take the greatest possible exception to their activity,” he said outside the courtroom. “This is the end result of a choice of gang activity on his part.”

A sawed-off shotgun found in Conchas’ home is proof of the defendant’s commitment to gang activity, Holmes said.

“What do you possess a sawed-off shotgun for except for killing people?” he asked.

Defense attorney James M. Farley, who painted his client as a hard-working student who fell into the wrong crowd, said McNally erred in his sentence and vowed to appeal.

“I think (McNally) ignored all the evidence,” Farley said. “That’s what he did wrong. I thought we had done sufficient work to convince anybody that this kid should go to youth authority.

“Judges develop a blindness when it comes to gangs, youth and the crime of murder. They can only come up with one sentence and that’s the maximum one.”

Farley said that Conchas, whose recruiting work with Ventura County Youth for Christ helped land his picture on the cover of a Christian brochure, was not a full-fledged gang member.

“He’s peripherally involved, but he’s not a card-carrying member,” Farley said. “He was on the track team and he was attending school regularly. He didn’t fit the criteria.”

In October, Conchas pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and the use of a deadly weapon in the May, 1992, slaying of Jose Lopez Navarro, 16, of Oxnard.

Minutes before the killing, Conchas and a group of friends spotted Navarro and another boy in Ventura’s Camino Real Park, according to court records.

Conchas and his friends surrounded the boys, and Navarro was stabbed twice before running away. But the former track star, upset because he thought Navarro had smashed his car windows a few days earlier, chased Navarro and inflicted a third and deadly stab wound to the back of his neck, court documents state.

Security was tight at Monday’s sentencing, with sheriff’s deputies screening audience members for weapons. Holmes said a fight erupted in the Ventura County Government Center parking lot Friday between friends of Conchas and Navarro’s friends and relatives.

Navarro’s relatives “were attacked by what appeared to be Ventura Avenue Gangsters,” said Robert Navarro, a victims’ advocate from the district attorney’s office (no relation to Jose Navarro).

“They were actually attacking the victim’s brothers and his friends,” he said. “It wasn’t a serious thing, just a few blows thrown.”

The victim’s father, Adalberto Navarro, declined through Robert Navarro to discuss the sentence with reporters Monday.

Farley said that at the time of the attack, Conchas was weeks away from moving to the San Francisco Bay Area to live with his brother and get away from the influences of Ventura Avenue.

“Unfortunately,” he said, “that didn’t happen fast enough.”