They were in their 30s, with careers and families. Then the Bay Area murders they committed in their 20s caught up with them

SAN FRANCISCO — One was a “teddy bear and an amazing man,” according to his wife. Another overcame methamphetamine and heroin addiction in favor of family life. The five men had overcome childhoods that were tumultuous, but they’d found stability in their 30s and early 40s.

Their sentences were a major step towards resolving a large-scale racketeering case aimed at the 19th/16th Street Sureños, a San Francisco-based gang that prosecutors have linked to seven killings and numerous other violent crimes. The murders included the killings of teens, innocent bystanders, and two double-homicides, all directly linked to gang business in one way or another.

One of the men, Aguilar, immigrated with his family from El Salvador when he was a child, after witnessing bombing and guerilla warfare during a civil war that claimed an estimated 75,000 lives. He landed between two rival gang territories in San Francisco; one day Sureños surrounded him after school, jumped him for being friends with a Norteño member, then offered him a chance at joining their gang, his attorney wrote in court papers.

“What I learned about myself: My head is not ready to leave gangs but my heart does want to,” Urbina wrote, according to a defense sentencing memo, adding that he wants to “start making decisions from the heart and attempt to get out of head.”Two others, Orlando Hernandez and Weston Venegas, both received 25 years for the killing of 19-year-old Jacob Valdiviezo, a college football player who was the victim of a mistaken-identity killing.

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