From the LA Weekly:
Did City Hall Fund a Gun-Runner?
Feds arrest Hector Marroquin, of the purported "No Guns" anti-gang program
FEDERAL ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS AGENTS knocked first, then entered the Downey home of purported anti-gang activist Hector Marroquin on Wednesday, arresting him for selling silencers and weapons - including three assault rifles and a machine gun - to an undercover ATF agent.
The gun sales, some of which Marroquin, the founder of the gang-intervention group No Guns, transacted at his bar in the city of Cudahy, were captured on videotape and audiotape, said police officers present at his arrest.
Inside the house, the 51-year-old veteran of the 18th Street Gang surrendered as his daughter's boyfriend, David Jimenez, a parolee at large, jumped out a window, tossed a gun into the backyard pool and climbed on the roof, authorities said. Officials said ATF agents then confronted him, he climbed back inside and was arrested and charged as a felon in possession of a gun.
Marroquin, an alleged associate of the prison-based Mexican Mafia, has grown accustomed to such intrusions, having been arrested many times over the years while at the same time being the founder and CEO of No Guns, which has received $1.5 million from Los Angeles City Hall via the much-criticized L.A. Bridges program designed by the Los Angeles City Council to keep youth out of gangs.
Last December, the L.A. Weekly exposed Marroquin's allegedly persistent gang ties and suspected mafia association, in its "Broken Bridges" article, based on federal Drug Enforcement Agency memos, classified L.A. County Sheriff's Department documents, wiretap transcripts and interviews with current and former law enforcers.
Since then, John Chavez, the head of L.A. Bridges, which funded No Guns through the Community Development Department, has lost his job.
On Wednesday, the L.A. District Attorney's Office filed five charges related to Marroquin's sale of automatic weapons and silencers to the undercover ATF agent, according to a criminal complaint filed in L.A. Superior Court. Also charged was Marroquin's girlfriend, Sylvia Arellano, who police arrested the same day in Cudahy. Police searched Marroquin's bar on Atlantic Avenue in Cudahy, as well as an auto yard in South Gate, where they recovered gang photos and journals.
The criminal charges against Marroquin are elevated by his gang membership, according to the complaint. If convicted on all counts, he and Arellano face up to 50 years in prison.
And in the "fruit not falling far from the tree" department:
Meanwhile, his son, Hector Marroquin Jr., a former No Guns officer who police say is an admitted 18th Street Gang member, has been indicted on charges of home invasion robbery and faces up to 40 years in prison.
Nice little family there -- something to be real proud of Hector...
