ARRESTS TARGET MEXICAN MAFIA

Sympathetic schoolteacher among those indicted

LOS ANGELES -- Federal authorities unsealed racketeering indictments
Thursday against 40 suspected members of the Mexican Mafia, including a Los
Angeles public school teacher and the wife of the gang's reputed leader.

Most of those named have been behind bars awaiting trial under earlier
indictments.

Among those newly indicted was Margaret Cheryl Farrell, 50, a Reseda
resident who teaches English to immigrant children at the Foshay Learning
Center, a highly regarded experimental school in south Los Angeles.

Also arrested Thursday was Sally Peters, 45, of Santa Ana, wife of reputed
Mexican Mafia leader Benjamin Peters, also known as Topo, who is serving a
life prison term.

The two women were among seven people taken into custody as 130 federal and
local law officers fanned out across Southern California seeking 16 new
suspects.

Farrell is accused of relaying messages between Mexican Mafia members inside
California prisons and associates in the Los Angeles area. One of those
messages named three people targeted by the gang's leaders for reprisal
attacks, according to the indictment.

Farrell, who has worked at the Foshay school since 1986, was known to have
stayed in touch with former students who wound up in prison, said a school
district official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

``She cares about these kids,'' the official said. ``The trouble with her is
that she is a gentle, kind and caring human being -- to a fault. I can't
believe she was knowingly involved with illegal activities.''

Peters also is accused of dispensing money made from the Mexican Mafia's
sale of drugs inside California prisons.

The indictments portray an organization that operates from behind prison
bars, seeks to control the distribution of illegal drugs in Latino
communities, demands tributes from Latino street gangs and drug traffickers
and metes out punishment to those who disobey its orders.