San Francisco Sureño sentenced to 26 years for killing teen, assaulting deputies, trying to smuggle drugs into Santa Rita Jail

SAN FRANCISCO — A Bay Area man whose family members have been both implicated in violent crimes and experienced tragedy after tragedy has been sentenced to 26 years in federal prison for killing a 19-year-old man in a gang-related quintuple shooting, court records show.

Jonathan Escobar, 26, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, three months after Escobar pleaded guilty to using a firearm in a crime of violence, as well as two other felony charges related to assaulting deputies and trying to smuggle drugs into Santa Rita Jail. Escobar’s co-defendant, 34-year-old Jose “Slim” Aguilar, has also pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing, court records show.

Escobar’s tumultuous and tragic history may have saved him an even worse penalty. In court papers, prosecutors said they took his youth and extremely unstable upbringing into consideration and decided against filing a murder charge under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, or RICO, which could have resulted in a life sentence or even the death penalty.

In 2021, the Northern California sect of the U.S. Department of Justice charged Escobar and Aguilar with killing 19-year-old Gerson Romero and wounding four other people in a 2018 shooting in San Francisco. The shooting came after Escobar and friends were hanging out at the Beauty Bar nightclub when someone sprayed the area with bullets. Escobar, then a member of the 16th/19th Street Sureños, apparently blamed the Norteño gang and spent the next 80 minutes driving around gang neighborhoods in the city looking for a victim.

It is unclear whether Romero was a gang member or just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but prosecutors say he was not involved in the prior shooting and that he and his friends “were in Norteño-claimed territory on a night when different Norteños had committed a drive-by shooting in Sureño territory.” Prosecutors added the evidence makes it “almost certain” that Escobar fired shots at the victims.

On top of that, Escobar was involved in a group assault in Santa Rita Jail, where two deputies were hospitalized with injuries. He also arraigned for an “associate” to sent mail into the jail that had been soaked with liquidized methamphetamine, according to authorities. The Santa Rita assault occurred in a “protective custody” module of the jail, but involved a gang that Escobar joined after dropping out of the Sureños, prosecutors said in court papers.

According to court records, Escobar has lost numerous loved ones to violence or prison. A defense sentencing memo outlining his upbringing says that his stepfather, Javier Campos Sr., physically abused Escobar and his twin brother and that their uncle, Ismael Carrillo, was sentenced to 24 years in state prison for killing Campos Sr. in 2012, after confronting him about the abuse. Escobar’s older brother, Jose Luis Anthony Escobar, was shot and killed at a Taco Bell in San Francisco one month before Campos Sr.’s death.

In 2021, Escobar’s twin brother was killed. His half-brother, Javier Campos Jr., 22, has been identified by police as a person of interest in two recent gang-related mass shootings, including a deadly shootout at a gas station in Oakland involving multiple gunmen, and a drive-by shooting in San Francisco that wounded nine.

“(Escobar) committed the conduct for which he stands charged,” his attorney, Jay Rorty, wrote in a sentencing memo. “He does not dispute the facts, save simply to say that everything that came before in Jonathan’s life lead him to the commission of the offense.”

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Ewenstein, while conceding Escobar had been dealt a rough hand in life, took issue with this rationalization. He submitted a court document offering a rebuttal.

“Escobar’s prior experiences did not compel him to take a gun, drive around the city for 80 minutes looking for victims, find those victims, park the car, get out, walk down the block, wait for pedestrians to pass, and then shoot over and over at a crowd of innocent people,” Ewenstein wrote. “Those actions were entirely Escobar’s choice, made with ample time for reflection and deliberation.”