How Modesto man serving life sentence received another 24 years behind bars
A 37-year-old Modesto man, who was already ordered to spend the rest of his life behind bars, has received an additional 24-year prison sentence for a deadly home-invasion robbery.
Joe Luis Ramirez on Feb. 21 pleaded no contest to one count of voluntary manslaughter and one count of robbery, according to a news release from the Stanislaus County District Attorney's Office.
The manslaughter charge stemmed from the botched home-invasion nearly eight years ago, in which Julio Jimenez was shot in the back three times as he pleaded for mercy.
The perpetrators targeted the wrong victims. Authorities have said the home-invasion robbery was carried out by a Norteño street gang regiment that was looking for drugs and cash, but apparently the drug dealers who once lived there had moved away.
Prosecutors said Ramirez in 2010 was a high-ranking Norteño gang member or "shot caller," participating in and ordering fellow gang members to commit multiple armed robberies, drug rip-offs and home-invasion robberies.
Seven other men have been convicted and sentenced for their roles in Jimenez's death, including Domingo Becerra, who admitted in court he participated in the the failed March 24, 2010, robbery. Becerra testified that he shot Jimenez after the victim tried to escape as he and other victims were held at gunpoint outside the home in the 600 block of Thrasher Avenue in Modesto’s airport neighborhood.
Becerra agreed to a plea deal with a prison sentence of 25 years to life in exchange for his testimony against the others in this robbery and two other gang-related trials.
A jury in September 2015 found Ramirez and two other defendants guilty in the shooting deaths of 10-year-old Epifanio Ramirez Jr. and 29-year-old Jason Cyphers. Joe Ramirez is not related the slain boy or his father.
Authorities have said the boy's father was the intended target in the July 28, 2009, shooting at the home in the 100 block of Santa Barbara Avenue in Modesto’s La Loma neighborhood. Investigators believed the boy’s father, Epifanio Ramirez Sr., was the intended target.
The boy was killed by a stray bullet that went through a wall and hit his head. Cyphers was in the home’s open garage with the boy’s father and three other people when he was struck by gunfire.
A judge in April 2016 sentenced Joe Ramirez and his two co-defendants to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the double-homicide.
Last week, Stanislaus Superior Court Judge Linda McFadden handed down the 24-year prison sentence shortly after Ramirez entered his no contest plea. Soon after the hearing, he was transported under heavy security to prison due to his status in the Norteño gang, according to prosecutors.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ramirez was being housed at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County.
This story was originally published February 28, 2018 at 1:18 PM with the headline "How Modesto man serving life sentence received another 24 years behind bars."