Member of the Mattapan Latin Kings branch gets 32 months in prison

A Latin Kings member who may have helped an English High School counselor remove drugs and guns from his apartment after the counselor shot a student in the head was sentenced to a little more than 2 1/2 years in federal prison on RICO charges for his membership in the Morton Street Bricks chapter of the national gang.

Oscar "King DO-Block" Pena, 25, is the 12th local Latin Kings member to be convicted since federal agents and local police swept up 62 local alleged Latin King members in December, 2019. Pena pleaded guilty in August of last year.

Among those arrested in the sweep was Shaun "Rev" Harrison, who is now serving a long state sentence for shooting an English High School student in the head over dissatisfaction with the student's work for the marijuana-distribution enterprise Harrison ran while a counselor at the school.

According to an affidavit by an FBI agent involved in the Latin Kings investigation, Pena and another alleged Latin Kings member helped Harrison get guns and drugs out of his Pompeii Street apartment after shooting the student in March, 2015 - even though Harrison was a member of another Latin Kings chapter, in Roxbury.

Then, the affidavit continues, while at the Nashua Street jail awaiting trial on the state charges, Harrison called another Latin Kings member and discussed who snitched on him:

Investigators believe that HARRISON suspects Oscar PENA because Oscar PENA was visited by Detectives at Nashua Street Jail following his arrest with D. LARA and W. PEGUERO on the night they cleaned guns and drugs out of 18 Pompeii Street for HARRISON.

Federal prosecutors had asked for a sentence of more than five years for Pena, whom they say sold fentanyl and guns as part of his membership in a chapter of the national gang named for a housing project.

That Pena had his ribs broken as part of punishment for violating a gang rule - in a beating that left his attacker with bloody knuckles - only proved his devotion to the goals of the gang, federal prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum, continuing that he was a bad sort even before he hooked up with the Latin Kings:

The defendant has amassed a lengthy and serious criminal history which includes multiple convictions or adjudications for robbery, breaking and entering, larceny, assault and battery on a police officer,and unlawful possession of a firearm and knife.

His attorney, however, asked for a shorter sentence, of 30 months, in part because Pena is now in "a healthy and stable relationship" with a woman with whom he has a four-month old son - as well as a two-year-old daughter with another woman for whom he has kept up child-support payments and made regular visits. Also, he is trying his best to make up for his difficult childhood - his father was in prison and his mother was deported when he was just six - through participation in GED and other education programs. And:

Mr. Pena fully understands the harm he has caused.Mr. Pena has taken full responsibility for his conduct by pleading guilty to the instant offense. He acknowledges his poor choices and poor judgment and accepts that he committed this crime and is ready to move on from it. He knows that serving his sentence is one step closer to improving his life and bettering himself.

Earlier:
Chronic obesity not reason enough to let alleged Latin Kings leader out of detention before trial because of coronavirus, judge rules.