A state appeals court Thursday rejected a re-sentencing bid from one of three men convicted of an April 2009 murder during a drug deal in Bellflower.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal noted in its ruling that “ample evidence” supports a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge’s finding that Francisco Argenis Parra was a major participant in the April 22, 2009, killing of Carlos Zarate at an apartment.
The appellate court justices noted in their 14-page ruling that Parra first participated about 1 1/2 weeks earlier in a drug sale with the murder victim as a pretense for a larger sale, and that he was present at the crime scene, armed and ready to use lethal force.
Parra, now 42, is serving a life prison sentence without the possibility of parole along with co-defendants Pedro Huerta Zuniga, now 56, and Hector Aguilar Arciga, now 51.
The three — whom a prosecutor said were part of a “drug rip-off crew” — were convicted in April 2014 of first-degree murder, home invasion robbery and first-degree burglary.
Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations of murder during the commission of a robbery and murder during the commission of a burglary, along with gun use allegations against the three.
Jurors did not determine which of the men shot the 23-year-old victim.
Zarate was shot nine times and another man was shot in the buttocks after someone in the apartment began unwrapping stacks of cash with large bills on top and one-dollar bills underneath, according to the appellate court’s ruling.