Governor again overrules parole board recommendation to free ex-Mexican Mafia member
LOS ANGELES - Rene Enriquez, a Mexican Mafia member who defected 18 years ago and helped law enforcement authorities incarcerate dozens of his one-time confederates, has been denied parole by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the fifth time in a row the state's governor has overruled a recommendation to free him.
Newsom disagreed with a parole board's opinion that Enriquez, 58, deserved to walk free after spending the last three decades in prison for a pair of murders committed in 1989. In a three-page letter signed late last week, Newsom said Enriquez's assistance to law enforcement, his self-help programming and other efforts to make amends didn't outweigh his "extensive history of violent and manipulative behavior."
At the height of his influence, Enriquez, who was known as "Boxer," controlled swaths of Southern California and earned a reputation as a ferocious killer. He ordered murders and committed them himself; he sold drugs and extorted dealers who peddled them in
