A sentencing hearing for a Los Angeles gang member convicted of carrying out a series of grisly killings to advance his standing in the organization was postponed Tuesday when the defendant refused to come out of his cell to be taken to court, officials said.
A federal jury found Walter Chavez Larin, 27, of Panorama City, guilty in November 2025 of one count of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and two counts of violent crimes in aid of racketeering, or VICAR, murder.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Chavez refused to come out of his cell at the downtown federal lockup to attend the early morning hearing. A new date was not immediately set.
Chavez’s four co-defendants were also found guilty of various charges at the conclusion of the nine-week trial.
Prosecutors said some of the murder victims were strangled, shot, stabbed with knives or a machete, beaten with a baseball bat and then, in some cases, had their bodies thrown off a cliff or down a hill in the Angeles National Forest.
According to evidence presented at trial, the murder victims either were or perceived to be rivals of the gang.
Federal prosecutors said the trial focused on Los Angeles cliques that implemented gang rules that required its members to use murder and extreme violence to rise within its ranks.
The charges relate to machete, knife and baseball bat killings in the Angeles National Forest and several other areas in remote mountainous locations in Los Angeles County.
Those six murders — which included killings committed in the mountains near Malibu, in a remote area of the Santa Clarita Valley, and two in Van Nuys — were also charged as violent crimes committed in aid of racketeering. The counts allege that victims were killed “for the purpose of gaining entry to and maintaining and increasing position” in the Los Angeles gang, according to prosecutors.
In June 2017, one victim — who claimed he had a leadership role in the gang — was taken to the Angeles National Forest then stabbed and hacked to death by Chavez and others, prosecutors said.
Several of the assailants unsuccessfully tried to decapitate him then left his body behind.
In October 2017, a man rumored to be a rival gang member was lured to his death by two teenage girls. He was kidnapped, strangled, beaten with a baseball bat then fatally stabbed with a large hunting style knife before his body was thrown off a cliff in the Angeles National Forest, prosecutors said.
In July 2018, a third rumored rival gang member was lured to the Malibu hills under the auspices of smoking marijuana and drinking beer with several others. While the victim stood at a scenic overlook, he was shot in the back of the head, prosecutors said. The victim’s body ultimately was thrown down a hill.
Prosecutors said Chavez also helped murder a gang associate who was addicted to methamphetamine — a violation of gang rules — and was shot to death on Jan. 13, 2019.