‘Inmates fend for themselves.’ Mexican gang members sentenced in KY prison assault.
Members of a Mexican gang have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for assaulting rival gang members in a Kentucky prison in a case that illustrates the potential for violence behind bars.
The four were members of the MEXIKANEMI, or the Texas Mexican Mafia, and carried out a brutal attack on two members of the rival Arizona Mexican Mafia at the federal prison in Martin County, called USP Big Sandy, according to a court document.
The attack happened in June 2018.
Rodney “Joker” Galindo and Michael “Taz” Morin tried to murder an inmate while fellow Texas Mexican Mafia members Eric “Big E” Flores and Salomon Martinez stood watch, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jenna E. Reed said in a sentencing memorandum.
As Galindo and Morin attacked the first victim, another member of the Arizona gang approached and Flores and Martinez attacked him.
The second victim tried to run away but Flores and Martinez grabbed his shirt to pull him back and continue the attack.
The assailants were armed with knives they made in the prison, called shanks.
The man Galindo and Morin attacked sustained life-threatening injuries, including a fractured skull and a traumatic brain injury, according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Robert M. Duncan Jr.
The other man suffered stab wounds and a broken shoulder blade.
U.S. District Judge Robert E. Wier sentenced Galindo, 38, to 25 additional years in prison and Morin, 52, to 21 more years.
Wier sentenced Flores, 38, to nine years in the assault and Martinez, 44, to just over eight years.
Cattlettsburg attorney Sebastian M. Joy, who represented Martinez, said he had no choice about joining the attack because of a culture in which gangs have proliferated in federal prisons and have control over inmates.
“This in turn has created a system where inmates have to fend for themselves and inmates who don’t follow the rules and regulations of their gang’s hierarchy are attacked or even killed,” Joy argued. “This environment is as much to blame for this incident.”
