Murderous, International Cocaine Dealer in Mexican Mafia Gets Punished in OC

Rolando Ontiveros: Didn't exactly get leniency at sentencing

For a decade after his 1999 federal grand jury racketeering indictment, Los Angeles-based gangster Rolando Ontiveros (AKA "Rolo") escaped justice for his prolific, murderous career as an international cocaine dealer in the Mexican Mafia.

Law enforcement intelligence placed Ontiveros in Mexico and living as a wealthy businessman.

In 2009, federal agents nabbed the fugitive, longtime leader of the Lott Stoners 13 street gang hiding in a pot-growing house in LA.

Three years later inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse an Orange County jury found him guilty on all 10 charges.

Since February, Ontiveros has been waiting to officially learn his fate.

This month, U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter in Santa Ana rendered punishment after listening to a federal prosecutor describe the defendant's "horrific" conduct and unrepentant attitude.

Once the 39-year-old and onetime Cal State LA business student dies in prison in this life and returns to serve another full life term, he'll still owe society another 300 months of incarceration.

According to records reviewed by the Weekly, federal agents used extensive wiretaps, confidential informants and surveillance to break Ontiveros' extortion/narcotics/guns/murder operation that terrorized citizens (and other Mexican Mafia hoodlums) throughout Southern California in the 1990s.

Ontiveros--who became a natty-dressing, multimillionaire in the underworld--remains in the custody of U.S. marshals inside the Santa Ana Jail, but will soon take his one-way trip to a federal prison.

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