A 26-year-old man was convicted Wednesday of gunning down an acquaintance in a dispute over his girlfriend in Santa Ana.
Carlos Alexander Gonzalez was convicted of first-degree murder and discharge of a firearm at an occupied car. Jurors also found true sentencing enhancements for discharge of a gun causing death.
Gonzalez faces 50 years to life in prison when he is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 14.
Gonzalez was convicted of fatally shooting 20-year-old Bryan Anthony Steubing Jr. of Santa Ana about 3:40 a.m. May 19, 2018, at 3109 S. Main St.
The victim was in the passenger seat of a car when a gunman shot him three to four times, Deputy District Attorney Anna McIntire wrote in her trial brief.
Steubing and Gonzalez “were part of the same social circle,” the prosecutor said.
“Many of the witnesses spoke of a growing animosity between the defendant and (the victim) over an alleged incident involving the defendant’s longtime girlfriend, Jolene Lopez,” McIntire said.
A few months before the shooting, the victim, Lopez and a group of friends were hanging out in a park where Lopez asked to be driven to Steubing’s house, McIntire said. They were seen leaving a party together, she added.
Two weeks after that on April 7, 2018, Steubing was stabbed and he told his father that Gonzalez attacked him, McIntire said. But the victim did not want to report it to police “out of fear of retaliation,” the prosecutor said.
Gonzalez posted on social media that he believed Steubing “tried to sexually assault his girlfriend,” and the defendant threatened the victim, McIntire said.
Steubing denied the allegations and said he had a consensual sexual encounter with Lopez, McIntire said.
Hours before the shooting, the victim and a friend were seen in surveillance video in a gas station running into Lopez, but the three did not interact with each other, McIntire said.
Lopez acknowledged to police that it was her in the video footage but she would not answer any more questions without a lawyer, McIntire said.
A friend of Lopez’s mother told police about efforts a group of friends took to cover up the shooting, McIntire said. Gonzalez’s clothes were hidden in bushes and the gun was dumped into the water by the Huntington Beach Pier, the prosecutor added.
The friend said Gonzalez told her he “shot the kid who messed with Jolene,” McIntire said.
Gonzalez has multiple other cases pending for attempted robbery, robbery and possessing drugs in jail. Lopez pleaded guilty in June of 2019 in connection with one of the robberies to assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury and was sentenced to 60 days in jail, according to court records