Richard Buchanan, a reputed Mexican Mafia from the San Diego area, died in prison Tuesday morning, authorities said. <\/p>\n
Guards found Buchanan unresponsive in his cell at Kern Valley State Prison, said Terri Hardy, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The Kern County Coroner\u2019s office will determine his cause of death, Hardy said. <\/p>\n
Buchanan, 72, had been incarcerated since 2004 for kidnapping a convict who was harassing a corrupt prison guard. From behind bars, he kept a hand in drug sales, illicit gambling, shakedowns and murder plots in San Diego County, according to court records and law enforcement officials who track the Mexican Mafia. <\/p>\n
Buchanan grew up in the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa neighborhoods just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, he said in a deposition. He denied he was affiliated with the Mexican Mafia, but a prison official testified he was deemed a member in 1989. Authorities believed he earned his admission by stabbing an inmate, Manuel Rebeles, in a San Diego County jail in 1987.<\/p>\n
Rebeles was a former member of the Nuestra Familia, a rival prison gang to the Mexican Mafia. He was lifting weights on the rooftop exercise yard when Buchanan stabbed him three times in the chest, investigators wrote in a report. Rebeles survived. Prosecutors argued the attack was ordered by two Mexican Mafia members from National City, Ronaldo and Hector Ayala. Buchanan was not convicted of the attack, but he spent much of the next two decades in prison for robbery, escape and other crimes. <\/p>\n
Whenever he got out, he didn\u2019t last long on the streets. In 2004, he was working at a junk yard and living in a house in National City, an associate told the FBI. The homeowner didn\u2019t charge him rent, and the truck Buchanan drove was a gift, the woman told agents. She said people gave things to Buchanan \u201cbecause he was a nice person.\u201d <\/p>\n
An informant for the San Diego Police Department offered to pay Buchanan \u201ctaxes\u201d if he protected the source\u2019s methamphetamine business. \u201cI can move a pound a month, OK?\u201d he told Buchanan in a recorded call. \u201cI just wanted to come and talk to you personally. And \u2014 and to make sure that I\u2019m under your wing.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re alright, homie,\u201d Buchanan replied. \u201cYou\u2019re alright.\u201d<\/p>\n
The informant gave Buchanan money and a phone that was tapped by the FBI, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. Through his phone calls, they learned of a corrupt correctional officer at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility. <\/p>\n
Ernesto Torres was serving a short prison stint for beating his wife when he grew close with a guard, Jessica Chavez, according to an appellate decision that summarized evidence at Buchanan\u2019s trial. When Torres was released, he and Chavez struck up a sexual relationship. Torres grew possessive. Chavez told him to leave her alone. <\/p>\n
Torres threatened to expose the relationship to her employer. \u201cYour whole world\u2019s going to come crashing down,\u201d he said in a voicemail. <\/p>\n
Chavez contacted an inmate at the prison who worked for Buchanan. Buchanan warned Torres to leave the guard alone. \u201cYou\u2019re messing with something that is there and it\u2019s there for a purpose,\u201d he said in a recorded call, insinuating Chavez was involved in other corrupt acts. <\/p>\n
Chavez called to thank Buchanan. \u201cI want to take you guys to have some drinks or something, dinner,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you guys are down or not.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll give you a call,\u201d Buchanan said.<\/p>\n
Chavez, who eventually resigned from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and pleaded guilty to making a criminal threat, testified she had sex with Buchanan\u2019s imprisoned associate because she was \u201cgrateful\u201d for his help. <\/p>\n
Torres, however, was undeterred. He left Chavez another voicemail: \u201cThey got ahold of me. The big homie Richie just talked to me to leave you alone. They been working on you a while.\u201d <\/p>\n
Buchanan and an underling, Steve \u201cSpanky\u201d Parraz, showed up at Torres\u2019 home. \u201cIf your family wasn\u2019t here, I\u2019d smoke you,\u201d Parraz said, according to appellate court records. Buchanan handed Torres a phone and told him to tell Chavez he\u2019d never bother her again. <\/p>\n
Buchanan wanted money. Torres said he had none but knew a drug dealer they could \u201ctax.\u201d As they drove to meet the dealer at a taco shop in Chula Vista, police officers stopped the car and arrested Buchanan, Parraz and Torres. Torres was hysterical. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t go back to prison,\u201d he said, according to a police report. \u201cI\u2019m dead. They\u2019re going to kill my family.\u201d<\/p>\n
While jailed on kidnapping and drug distribution charges, Buchanan sanctioned Imperial County gang members to collect \u201ctaxes\u201d in El Centro, Brawley, Holtville, Calipatria and Niland, according to an indictment. His underlings kidnapped and tortured a dealer who refused to pay, the indictment said. <\/p>\n
Sentenced to life in prison, Buchanan maintained a grip over gangs in the South Bay area of San Diego, according to an FBI report of an informant\u2019s interview. He split with the Ayala brothers a pot of extortion money collected from the county jails that was called \u201cthe light bill,\u201d the source reported. He also partnered with the Ayalas in running illegal gambling houses, according to the report. <\/p>\n
In 2024, Buchanan was captured on a wiretapped call talking with Ronaldo Ayala and Frank \u201cChino\u201d Madriaga, a Mexican Mafia member who\u2019d been released from federal prison. According to a complaint, Buchanan and Ayala, who was sentenced to death for a 1985 triple-murder, wanted Madriaga to track down a gang \u201cdrop out\u201d who\u2019d been spotted in San Diego. <\/p>\n
Madriaga was convicted in September of conspiring to commit murder. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Richard Buchanan, a reputed Mexican Mafia from the San Diego area, died in prison Tuesday morning, authorities said.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503582,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4458,7,9,8,337,17890,23054,194812,1055,28469,60683,194813,194815,95168,194814,2901,3729,98277],"class_list":["post-503581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-buchanan","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-call","tag-corrections","tag-drug-dealer","tag-ernesto-torres","tag-fbi","tag-guard","tag-informant","tag-jessica-chavez","tag-madriaga","tag-mexican-mafia-member","tag-parraz","tag-prison","tag-report","tag-san-diego-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503581\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}