facebook-pixel

Police say gang member ‘greenlit’ witnesses who testified against him in cemetery shooting

(Photos courtesy Salt Lake County Jail) Jesus Joshua Payan-Mendoza.

A gang member has been charged with intimidating witnesses after he was charged in both a shooting at a cemetery and a shooting outside the Fashion Place mall in January.

Jesus Joshua Payan-Mendoza, 20, of Heber, was booked into the Salt Lake County jail on Saturday. He has been charged with two counts of witness tampering in Third District Court. The charges carry up to 15 years in prison.

Payan-Mendoza was already facing a charge of attempted murder, a first-degree felony, after he reportedly fired at a group of rival gang members in the Taylorsville Memorial Cemetery on Jan. 6. According to police, he fired six shots at a group there to mourn a gang member who had ben shot to death, but no one was injured.

A week later, Payan-Mendoza was reportedly involved in a shooting outside Fashion Place in Murray, when members of two gangs confronted each other, shots were fired, and two people were wounded. He was charged with causing a riot, punishable by up to five years in prison.

On Dec. 12, Payan-Mendoza appeared in Third District Court in West Jordan at a preliminary hearing in the cemetery shooting. According to charging documents, police learned several hours later that Payan-Mendoza posted on his Snapchat account: “It's always the closest n----- to you that will take the stand against you.”

The caption was accompanied by two audio clips of a prosecutor asking a witness his name, followed by each the two witness stating and spelling their names.

According to police, the two witnesses were being “greenlit” by Payan-Mendoza. “'Greenlit' is a gang term that means the named person will be assaulted and possibly even murdered if seen by members/associates of the gang,” detectives wrote. “This is done to intimidate gang members and non-gang member citizens, preventing them from cooperating with law enforcement.”

Detectives wrote that they do not know how Payan-Mendoza obtained an audio recording of the Dec. 12 preliminary hearing, which were posted to show the witnesses “are in violation of gang rules.”

Payan-Mendoza and the two witnesses are all members of the Florencia 13 gang, according to court documents. The two witnesses “stopped associating with the gang” after the Fashion Place shooting. And, according to detectives, other witnesses have expressed concerns to police about their own safety, “the exact reason for making the post in the first place.”

Payan-Mendoza is being held without bail. His was out on a $1 million bond in the attempted murder case; that has been revoked.