Gang Member Sentenced to Death for Murders of Compton Girl, Man

Gang Member Sentenced to Death
for Murders of Compton Girl, Man

April 24, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Joe Scott, Director of Communications
Sandi Gibbons, Public Information Officer
Jane Robison, News Secretary
Shiara Dávila-Morales, Assistant PIO
(213) 974-3525

LOS ANGELES – A South Los Angeles gang member who in 2001 killed a 14-year-old girl with a bullet to the back of the head and in 1998 fatally shot an unarmed man in the face was sentenced to death today.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry said the sentence of death was “warranted” and called the jury’s death penalty phase verdict “appropriate” for Steven Cheatham, 32, of Compton. Judge Perry additionally denied a defense motion for a new trial.

Cheatham was convicted on October 7, 2008 of two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and murder to further the activities of a criminal street gang. The defendant also was convicted of four counts of attempted murder and jurors found true allegations that Cheatham personally discharged a firearm during each crime and that the crimes were committed for the benefit of a criminal street gang.

Deputy District Attorney Halim Dhanidina of the Major Crimes Division, who co-prosecuted the case with Deputy District Attorney Eric Harmon of the Hardcore Gang Division, called Cheatham a “one-man wrecking crew” who exhibited an indiscriminate pattern of violence.

On July 1, 2001, victim Elvira Ramirez, 14, and two companions, a 13-year-old girl and a 15-year-old boy, went to use a pay phone outside the P&G Market at the corner of Peach Street and Paulson Avenue in Compton.

As the three stood outside, Cheatham – a documented gang member of the Fruit Town Piru gang, a Blood gang – approached the boy and asked him his gang affiliation. When the boy said he was not a gang member, the defendant shouted an expletive, withdrew a semiautomatic pistol and began firing.

The boy was shot in the leg as he ran away and the 13-year-old girl was shot in the arm as she attempted to flee. Ramirez, however, froze in place. As she crouched down and looked away from the defendant, he shot her in the back of the head, then stood over her and shot her in the leg.

Two and a half years earlier, on Dec. 20, 1998, Cheatham murdered victim Phillip Ovalle, 33, at the same location. A one-time member of a rival street gang, Ovalle had just made a purchase at P&G Market and was about to ride away on his bike when he was surrounded by Cheatham and two others. Cheatham fatally shot Ovalle once in the face. No others were charged in connection with the murder, prosecutors said.

The defendant also was convicted of the attempted murders of a man and woman on Oct. 30, 2000. As the two victims stood in an alley, the defendant approached the male victim and accused him of the shooting death of a high-ranking Fruit Town Piru member. Cheatham then proceeded to shoot both victims.

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