Three men were sentenced this week in San Diego federal court for their roles in abducting a San Diego teenager who was tortured and killed in Tijuana, while a fourth defendant in the case continues to seek a new trial on the grounds that an unsolicited text message tainted the jury that convicted him of shooting and killing the victim.
U.S. District Judge William Hayes has now sentenced four of the five defendants in the case to prison terms ranging from five years to just under 12 years. He is continuing to weigh whether to grant the new trial. He had not made a ruling as of Friday.
The case is centered on the May 2020 death of 19-year-old U.S. citizen and San Diego resident Miguel Anthony Rendon, who prosecutors said stole more than 2 pounds of methamphetamine that he was meant to smuggle across the border. The theft sparked a hunt by the drug dealers who had tasked him with moving the drugs. Once they found Rendon, they abducted him, tortured him, attempted to extort his family in San Diego and killed him by shooting him five times in the head.
On Wednesday, Hayes sentenced Alan Lomeli Luna to 11 years and eight months in prison; Jonathan Emmanuel Montellano Mora to 10 years and five months; and Wyatt Valencia Pacheco to nine years and two months. The judge last month sentenced Luis Armando Dorantes Rivera Jr. to five years in prison.
Valencia, Montellano and Dorantes had each pleaded guilty to a charge of hostage-taking, while Dorantes also pleaded guilty to a kidnapping conspiracy charge.
Lomeli pleaded guilty to a charge of intentional killing while engaged in drug trafficking, admitting in his plea agreement that “(he) and his co-conspirators intentionally killed the victim by shooting him multiple times in the head.” Lomeli maintained that he did not fire the gun, but acknowledged in his plea that prosecutors “could prove that (he) counseled, commanded, induced, procured, or caused the death of the victim.”
Prosecutors argued that Lomeli acted as a lookout at the top of a ravine while another defendant shot Rendon.
Lomeli’s attorney, Jeremy Warren, said his client was still a juvenile when the crime took place, and that at one point his life had been in danger when he was the one on the hook for the drugs that Rendon stole.
“This is a tragic situation that shows there is sometimes a thin line between being a perpetrator and being a victim,” Warren said. “It’s a cautionary tale for young people, and anyone, to stay away from drugs, because where there are drugs, there can be violence.”
Attorneys for the other recently sentenced defendants either declined to comment or did not respond to messages Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mario Peia and Sasha Foster contend that the gunman who shot Rendon was Brian Alexis Patron Lopez. They’ve argued that Patron was looking to “up his status in the drug trafficking organization” by taking control over Rendon’s kidnapping and death.
Following a six-day trial in March, a San Diego jury convicted Patron of intentional killing while engaged in drug trafficking, hostage taking resulting in death and conspiracy to take hostages resulting in death.
But Patron is now contesting that verdict, and last month his attorney filed a motion for a new trial. The motion is based on information that began to emerge on the day of the verdict about a text message that may have influenced some of the jurors.
According to court filings and post-trial testimony from the jurors, one of the panelists received a text message late in the trial from an unknown number, and she feared that it might be linked to the case. She testified that she discussed the text with several other jurors and showed it to a handful of them in the days and hours before and after they convicted Patron.
The jurors who heard about or saw the text exchange believed it was a spam message, they later testified under oath. But the juror who received the message did not inform the court about her suspicions until after the jury had reached its verdict and was leaving the courthouse for the final time.
“In this case, the jurors were subjected to graphic testimony about a (drug-trafficking organization’s) murderous, retaliatory-fueled enterprise,” Patron’s defense attorney, Meghan Blanco, wrote in the motion for a new trial. “Against that backdrop, Juror 1 received an extraneous communique from a source that she believed was possibly connected to the DTO. But in direct contravention of the Court’s unequivocally clear instruction, directing jurors to report any extraneous contact to the court, Juror 1 remained silent.”
Blanco argued that the juror spent an inordinate amount of time discussing and thinking about the text, which distracted her from thinking about the facts of the case as she helped decide the verdict. Blanco argued that even if the text was a junk message and not related to the case in any way, the juror’s belief that it might be related and her actions in discussing it with other jurors and failing to notify the judge were enough to prejudice Patron and deprive him of his “Sixth Amendment and due process right to have twelve undistracted jurors decide his fate.”
Blanco wrote in the motion that the other defendants in the case testified against Patron during the trial to try to secure more lenient sentences. She said they wanted to pin the blame on him “despite the fact that he bore no financial responsibility … for the bungled drug run” and despite a lack of evidence about his motive.
The prosecutors argued in a responding motion that Patron’s conviction should be upheld because the text message to the juror was clearly spam.
“The few jurors who knew about the message before being discharged all treated the message as spam and believed it had no connection to the case,” the prosecutors wrote. “All jurors testified that they did not feel intimidation, fear, or concern, that they could be fair and impartial, and that they could listen to and follow the Court’s instructions. The messages had no influence on the jury.”
Hayes held a hearing on the new trial motion earlier this month and took the matter under submission. There is no timetable for him to make a ruling. If the judge decides the verdict should be upheld and a new trial is not warranted, Patron is set to be sentenced in November, though he could appeal the ruling.
Originally Published: August 15, 2025 at 10:06 AM PDT