REPUTED MAFIA GENERAL GETS DEATH

DALLAS -- A Dallas County jury has sentenced a reputed Mexican Mafia
general to death for the 1994 killings of two men in San Antonio.

Robert "Beaver" Perez, 40, will undergo lethal injection for the shootings
of Jose Travieso, 34, and 27-year-old James Robert Rivas on the streets of
San Antonio five years ago in what prosecutors described as a power
struggle within the prison-based gang. Travieso was in a wheelchair as a
result of being paralyzed by a shooting several years earlier.

Perez's trial was moved to Dallas from San Antonio amid extensive news
coverage and fears of retaliation in Central Texas.

Bexar County prosecutor Mary Green said she hoped the jury's decision
Friday sent a message "to Robert Perez in particular and the Mexican Mafia
in general that their tactics of intimidation may work for a while -- they
won't work forever."

Perez was among 10 reputed Mexican Mafia members accused of plotting
robberies, drug deals and 15 murders. All were found guilty last month in
San Antonio of federal charges for participation in the string of slayings
in the San Antonio area since 1994.

In addition to his death sentence, Perez awaits sentencing in the federal
case. He faces life without possibility of parole.