A gang member was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison Tuesday for the extortion-fueled fatal shooting of a restaurant owner in the garage of the victim’s Alhambra home.
Jurors deliberated less than a day before finding Xia Lin, 28, of San Gabriel, guilty Oct. 22 of first-degree murder for the Sept. 22, 2013, shooting death of Quin-Jin Fang, in the 300 block of North Monterey Street.
The panel also found true allegations that the crime was committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang and that Lin had personally used a gun in the commission of the crime.
Fang, 43, was shot three times in the head and twice in the chest with a .22-caliber handgun with a silencer attached, according to Deputy District Attorney David Ayvazian.
“We believe it was (motivated by) some kind of extortion the victim was not willing to pay,” Ayvazian said after the verdict, citing the testimony of a gang expert from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Asian Gang Team.
The prosecutor noted that the victim owned a Chinese restaurant in Lynwood, and that more than $9,700 in cash was found in plain view inside the victim’s car after the killing.
Lin — a documented member of a gang that targets and extorts Chinese- owned businesses — later told police that he was there to collect money on behalf of another gang member, but denied being involved in the shooting, according to the prosecutor.
The handgun used in the shooting was recovered in a fanny pack a few hours later about a half-mile away from the murder scene, and Lin was arrested in a nearby Mercedes-Benz that matched the description of a vehicle seen at the scene of the killing, Ayvazian said.
DNA evidence found on the gun’s trigger, trigger guard and grip were consistent with Lin’s DNA profile, the prosecutor said.
— Wire reports