A federal judge Thursday put off sentencing of the ex-wife of reputed Orange County Mexican Mafia chief Johnny Martinez for a month because the defendant was too grief-stricken from a death in the family to participate in the hearing.
Brenda Vanessa Campos Martinez pleaded guilty April 24 to conspiracy to distribute and possess heroin and methamphetamine. She was indicted as part of a racketeering case against the Orange County chapter of the Mexican Mafia.
Campos Martinez sobbed softly while waiting for U.S. District Judge Fred Slaughter to take the bench in her scheduled sentencing Thursday. Her brother-in-law, whom she said she was close to, died a couple of weeks ago and her attorney Meghan Blanco said it has been her experience that her client needs about a month usually to work through her grief.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Greg Staples told Slaughter he had been advised Campos Martinez appeared “withdrawn from reality,” so he felt the hearing should be rescheduled.
Slaughter said he saw the defendant shaking her head as Staples spoke, so he remarked that she appeared to understand the proceedings.
“She may be upset,” Slaughter said. “But I’m not seeing anything indicating she’s unable to understand the proceedings.”
Staples said he could not tell if the defendant was putting on “an act” or not, but he wanted to “err on the side of caution” in granting some sort of continuance in the case.
Blanco said she “learned about an hour ago” about Campos Martinez’s grief-stricken state. She said it appears her client was suffering “very acute depression.”
Blanco noted she saw the same reaction from Campos Martinez in March 2024 when her husband died and when her father died in August.
“It takes Ms. Campos a month for her to talk without breaking down and crying,” Blanco said.
Slaughter is set sentencing for March 12.
Blanco argued for a year and a day of prison, a year of home confinement, 300 hours of community service, mental health counseling and five years of supervised release for her client.
Staples recommended 78 months in prison and five years of supervised release.
Blanco argued that Campos Martinez played a “minor” role in the Orange County Mexican Mafia’s crimes.
“Ms. Campos’ involvement was entirely relationship-driven,” Blanco said in her sentencing brief. “She was married to Johnny Martinez. That marriage — short-lived and emotionally formative — was the sole reason for her involvement. She was following the instructions of her husband, whom she loved dearly at the time.”
Blanco said Campos Martinez “did not grow up around gangs, was not immersed in criminal culture and did not appreciate the broader implications of what she was being asked to do.”
The defendant thought “some of the money she collected was for legal expenses,” Blanco said.
“She did not understand prison politics, enforcement mechanisms nor how her actions fit into a larger system of coercion and violence,” Blanco said. “She turned a blind eye — not out of greed or ambition — but out of loyalty, emotional dependence and low self-esteem within the marriage.”
Campos Martinez ended the relationship in 2019 after she was detained by law enforcement, her attorney argued. The racketeering indictment that included her was handed down in 2022.
Staples argued that Campos Martinez helped enable “the operations of the exceedingly dangerous and harmful enterprise that was the OC Mexican Mafia during the acts alleged in the indictment.”
Staples noted that the Mexican Mafia “controls criminal activities through violence and threats of violence” as it “controls local street gangs and forces its members to `pay taxes.”’
“Unsurprisingly, communication is necessary to facilitate the entire criminal enterprise,” so the Mexican Mafia relies on so-called secretaries to pass along messages and instructions from incarcerated members such as Johnny Martinez, Staples said.
Campos Martinez “attempted to extort $800” from a confidential informant she believed was a drug dealer in return for protection from the Mexican Mafia,” Staples said. She extorted $400 another time from the informant, he added.
Campos Martinez also collected a “$900 drug debt” in September 2017, Staples said.
She was “repeatedly engaged in this conduct and maintaining information on behalf of the OC Mexican Mafia that allowed it to conduct its operations,” Staples said.
She even had “calendar planners” with detailed “ledgers of extortion collections, payment receipts to jail accounts and lists outlining which Hispanic street gangs fell under which OC Mexican Mafia members,” Staples said.
When law enforcement served a warrant at her home, she was in possession of $12,748 in cash, Staples said.