LA gang member convicted of 4 murders

gang member who hid out in the Philippines for 11 years was found guilty Thursday for four murders during a mid-1990s crime spree in a quest to make the gang the most feared in Los Angeles. Jurors found Pierre Mercado guilty of four counts of murder, two counts of kidnapping and five counts of attempted murder. He will be sentenced Aug. 24 and faces up to life in prison. Mercado was a member of the Asian Boyz, a gang founded by his brother Marvin Mercado that terrorized parts of Los Angeles in the mid-1990s. Marvin Mercado was convicted of eight murders and received eight life sentences last year in a separate case. He founded the notorious Asian Boyz in the early 1990s with a schoolmate in the San Fernando Valley. The gang had Cambodian, Vietnamese and Filipino factions and included three cliques in the suburbs of Los Angeles and one in San Jose. Prosecutors said while most gangs make money dealing drugs, the Asian Boyz committed burglaries and robberies. The killings stemmed from a violent rampage in 1995 that the gang dubbed the "summer of madness" in an attempt to become the city's most feared gang. Three of Pierre Mercado's murder victims were mistaken as rival gang members, said prosecutor Hoon Chun. The two attempted murder counts stem from an incident where Mercado and his associates shot at two Marines who were in a car returning to Camp Pendleton. The Mercados eventually fled to the Philippines, the home of their parents. Marvin Mercado married the daughter of a wealthy construction magnate and used the name Mark de los Angeles. Pierre Mercado posed as his brother's cousin and used the alias Angel Reyes.

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