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A convicted drug trafficker linked to the Sinaloa cartel who labored for the son of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was gunned down Thursday morning in an industrial stretch of Willowbrook, in keeping with authorities and court docket data.

Eduardo Escobedo, 39, was considered one of two males killed within the 14200 block of Towne Avenue, in keeping with officers from the Los Angeles Medical Examiner-Coroner and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Division. The opposite sufferer was Guillermo De Los Angeles Jr., 47.

Round 8 a.m. Thursday, sheriff’s deputies responded to an industrial space stuffed with warehouses, together with a truck yard, pallet storage facility and a church. Escobedo and De Los Angeles died on the scene. A 3rd man was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening gunshot wounds.

“It seems that there was some sort of gathering or occasion on the location from final evening to early this morning,” Lt. Omar Camacho instructed KABC-TV Channel 7 on the scene.

Eduardo Escobedo in a photograph from court docket data.

(United States District Courtroom exhibit)

Escobedo, whose nickname, “El Mago,” interprets to “The Magician,” served 4 years and 9 months in federal jail for conspiring to distribute greater than 10,000 kilograms of marijuana and laundering drug proceeds. He was launched in 2018.

Raised in East Los Angeles, Escobedo rose to develop into the first distributor of marijuana in Los Angeles for Guzman’s oldest son, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, a prosecutor mentioned at a 2014 detention listening to. He laundered the proceeds partly by shopping for unique automobiles and delivery them to Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa and the cartel’s stronghold.

Escobedo was additionally alleged to have ordered the dying of a rival trafficker who was gunned down in his Bentley on the 101 Freeway in 2008. Whereas Escobedo was by no means charged within the homicide, his brother and one other man have been convicted and are serving life sentences.

Escobedo was born in the US, his lawyer, Guadalupe Valencia, mentioned on the detention listening to. He attended Garfield Excessive Faculty, the place he met his spouse, and later graduated from a continuation college, Valencia mentioned.

In July 2011, Escobedo, then 27, was arrested leaving a stash home the place police discovered a ton of marijuana, Adam Braverman, an assistant U.S. legal professional, mentioned on the detention listening to. Torrance police, which served the warrant, mentioned the stash home was within the West Adams neighborhood.

In October 2013, Escobedo was caught on a wiretap talking with Guzman Salazar about smuggling greater than 5 tons of marijuana by means of a tunnel underneath the U.S.-Mexico border, Braverman mentioned. Authorities seized 2.7 tons of hashish from a courier working for Escobedo, in keeping with the prosecutor.

Guzman Salazar stays considered one of Mexico’s most needed males. One among his prime lieutenants, Néstor Isidro Pérez Salas, nicknamed “El Nini,” was captured by the Mexican Nationwide Guard earlier this week in Culiacan. Justice Division officers are looking for to extradite Pérez Salas, who’s charged in two U.S. jurisdictions with conspiring to visitors methamphetamine, fentanyl and cocaine; laundering cash; retaliating in opposition to witnesses; and possessing machine weapons.

Escobedo was additionally serving to Guzman Salazar launder cash by means of the acquisition of sports activities automobiles that have been shipped to Culiacan, Braverman mentioned. Federal brokers decided that Escobedo used a false title to purchase two Lamborghinis from a dealership in Newport Seashore.

Braverman mentioned Escobedo was stopped by the Irwindale police driving one of many automobiles, a $175,000-dollar Murcielago. The Lamborghini was bought with a sequence of money deposits simply beneath the $10,000 threshold that triggers a financial institution reporting requirement, in keeping with a warrant for the automobile’s seizure.

Brokers listened on a wiretap as Guzman Salazar requested Escobedo to buy a Nissan GTR and make $50,000 in modifications, Braverman mentioned. Mexican authorities seized the Nissan in Culiacan in 2014, in addition to a McLaren that Escobedo had purchased in California for $175,000, the prosecutor mentioned.

On the time of his arrest in 2014, Escobedo was residing in a sprawling Granada Hills residence with a pool and tennis court docket. Drug Enforcement Administration brokers searched Escobedo and located him carrying a considerable amount of money, 4 telephones and keys to 5 completely different automobiles.

A father of 4, Escobedo claimed his annual earnings of about $200,000 got here from a enterprise he owned along with his spouse, Worldwide Hair Authority, that imported hair extensions and offered them. Escobedo additionally reported proudly owning a file label, Magic Information Company.

Braverman mentioned brokers suspected Escobedo was utilizing the hair firm’s accounts to launder drug cash, pointing to a $50,000 wire switch from a person named Harvinder Singh. Scotland Yard, the London police power, arrested Singh and his associates, who have been delivery cocaine from Mexico to London on British Airways flights, Braverman mentioned.

After pleading responsible to conspiring to distribute marijuana and launder cash, Escobedo was sentenced to 57 months in federal jail.

He was by no means charged in a homicide that despatched his youthful brother to jail.

In 2008, police discovered a bullet-riddled silver Bentley Continental GT crashed on the middle median of the 101 freeway in downtown Los Angeles. Jose Luis Macias, 25, was slumped behind the wheel. A bullet had gone by means of the again of his head.

Nicknamed “Huerito,” Macias labored for the Arellano Felix group, a Tijuana-based cartel that rivals the Sinaloans. Macias’ pals usually received into fights with Escobedo’s brother, Andy Medrano, at a Pico Rivera nightclub referred to as El Rodeo, in keeping with an appellate choice that summarized the proof in Medrano’s trial.

Within the early morning hours of Dec. 12, 2008, Macias was at a pageant for the Virgin of Guadalupe on Olvera Road when he received right into a struggle with Medrano and a buddy, Michael Aleman, a witness testified. Safety guards broke it up.

Macias was ready at a purple gentle in his Bentley when two males approached the automobile on foot, a witness testified. The witness, a stranded motorist ready for a tow truck, noticed muzzle flashes erupt in fast succession, as if from computerized weapons. The Bentley made a U-turn and sped towards the freeway.

Police suspected Escobedo had ordered the killing. In line with a search warrant affidavit reported by The Occasions in 2009, detectives believed he and Macias have been engaged in “an influence battle” over management of trafficking networks.

On the 2014 detention listening to in federal court docket, Braverman mentioned Los Angeles detectives suspected Escobedo “ordered the murder to happen.”

“Our understanding is that particular person was a rival drug trafficker driving in that Bentley,” he mentioned.

Detectives arrested Escobedo in 2011 and questioned him concerning the murder earlier than letting him go. Valencia, his legal professional, mentioned Escobedo was subpoenaed to testify, however was instructed by a prosecutor he wasn’t being referred to as as a witness within the trial. His brother and Aleman have been convicted of Macias’ homicide and sentenced to life phrases.

After his launch from federal jail in 2018, Escobedo opened a series of eating places and meals vehicles referred to as Benihibachi, in keeping with a movement his lawyer submitted to terminate his probation early. The movement included {a photograph} of Escobedo sporting a shirt with the restaurant’s emblem, chopping a bath stuffed with onions.

His legal professional, Ezekiel Cortez, urged the choose to see the nice Escobedo had performed after leaving jail. “As a society, you acknowledge that they listened. You acknowledge individuals who turned their lives round,” Cortez mentioned at a listening to. “You acknowledge individuals who minimize their ties, as on this case, with former very unhealthy associations.”

“Mr. Escobedo proved to the entire phrase that he minimize his ties utterly,” Cortez mentioned. “And he acquired some dangers.”

Calling Escobedo “an infinite success,” U.S. District Choose Dana M. Sabraw agreed to terminate his probation early. “Free from these influences,” Sabraw mentioned of Escobedo’s ties to drug traffickers, “you’re a very productive, fantastic human being.”

Nonetheless, Escobedo flaunted his opulent life-style on social media in recent times. He posed for pictures with Floyd Mayweather and Al Pacino. He wore flashy tracksuits by Dolce and Gabbana and sported a diamond-encrusted Richard Mille watch. One {photograph} confirmed Escobedo holding a duffel bag full of cash. In one other, he embraces a member of the Mexican Mafia whereas holding a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne.

In a corrido, or ballad, titled “El Mago,” the group Edicion Especial sang that Escobedo had modified for the higher. “A very long time in the past it was completely different,” the tune goes, however right this moment he has “los gringos” consuming at his Japanese eating places. He thinks usually of his brother, “the one who’s in jail.”

Investigators haven’t disclosed a motive for the killings. Camacho didn’t instantly return a request for remark.

De Los Angeles had been launched from federal jail in December 2022, court docket data present. A member of the 18th Road gang referred to as “Unhappy Boy,” he served 10 years for distributing methamphetamine.

After Escobedo’s dying Thursday, the group Enigma Norteno put out a ballad referred to as “El Mago Merlin.” Escobedo nonetheless hangs out in East Los Angeles and fears nobody, the tune goes. He baptized the kid of Guzman Salazar, the kingpin’s son, and acquired his “compadre” a white Lamborghini Huracan for his birthday.

“The dream,” the singer says, “has come true.”

Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives on the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas on Could 15, 2022.

Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

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Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean “Diddy” Combs arrives on the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas on Could 15, 2022.

Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP

NEW YORK — Two extra ladies have come ahead to accuse Sean “Diddy” Combs of sexual abuse, one week after the music mogul settled a separate lawsuit with the singer Cassie that contained allegations of rape and bodily abuse.

Each of the brand new fits had been filed Thursday on the eve of the expiration of the Grownup Survivors Act, a New York regulation allowing victims of sexual abuse a one-year window to file civil motion whatever the statute of limitations.

The filings element acts of sexual assault, beatings and compelled drugging allegedly dedicated within the early Nineties by Combs, then a expertise director, get together promoter and rising determine in New York Metropolis’s hip-hop group.

One of many accusers, Joi Dickerson, mentioned she was a 19-year-old scholar at Syracuse College when she agreed to satisfy Combs at a restaurant in Harlem in 1991. After their date, Combs “deliberately drugged” her, then introduced her house and sexually assaulted her, based on the submitting.

With out her information, Combs videotaped the assault and later shared it with a number of buddies within the music trade, the swimsuit alleges. The general public publicity despatched Dickerson right into a “tailspin,” contributing to extreme despair that landed her within the hospital and compelled her to drop out of faculty.

In a separate lawsuit filed Thursday, an unnamed lady accused Combs and an R&B singer, Aaron Corridor, of sexually assaulting her and a good friend, then beating her a number of days later.

The girl — recognized solely as Jane Doe — mentioned that she and her roommate returned to Corridor’s house with him and Combs after a music trade occasion in 1990 or 1991. The accuser mentioned she was coerced into having intercourse with Combs. Afterward, as she was getting dressed, “Corridor barged into the room, pinned her down and compelled Jane Doe to have intercourse with him,” the swimsuit states.

When the sufferer later spoke to her good friend, who can also be not named, she discovered that her good friend “had been pressured to have intercourse with Combs and Corridor in one other room,” based on the swimsuit. “Upon data and perception, when Combs completed with Jane Doe, he and Corridor switched, and so they commenced assaulting Jane Doe’s good friend,” the swimsuit states.

A couple of days later, an “irate” Combs allegedly confirmed up on the house of the 2 ladies in an try to cease them from talking out in regards to the abuse. He then choked the girl recognized as Jane Doe till she handed out, the swimsuit states.

In an emailed assertion, a spokesperson for Combs denied the allegations, accusing the 2 ladies of looking for to take advantage of the New York regulation that briefly prolonged the statute of limitations.

An e-mail inquiry to Corridor was not returned.

Tyrone Blackburn, an legal professional for the unnamed accuser, mentioned his shopper was within the strategy of securing medical paperwork and witness statements to help her swimsuit, which was filed late Thursday “in an effort to protect the statute of limitations.”

The swimsuit introduced by Dickerson notes that the sufferer filed police stories in New York and New Jersey after the abuse. Inquiries to the New York Metropolis Police Division weren’t instantly returned. It was not clear which different jurisdictions the stories might have been filed.

After the filmed assault, Dickerson mentioned she approached buddies within the music trade asking them to substantiate the existence of the “revenge porn” tape, however was rebuffed by those that had been “terrified that Combs would retaliate towards them and that they might lose future enterprise and music alternatives.”

The Related Press doesn’t sometimes title individuals who say they’ve been sexually abused until they arrive ahead publicly, as Dickerson has executed.

In years after the alleged assaults, Combs, now 54, would discovered his personal label, Dangerous Boys Data, serving to to provide Mary J. Blige and Biggie Smalls on his method to turning into one of the vital influential hip-hop producers and executives within the style’s historical past.

The pair of lawsuits comply with a separate set of explosive allegations made final week by Cassie Ventura, who mentioned that Combs subjected her to a sample of abuse throughout their yearslong relationship, which started in 2005, when she was 19 and he was 37.

Among the many allegations, Ventura mentioned Combs plied her with medicine, subjected her to “savage” beatings, and compelled her to have intercourse with male prostitutes whereas he masturbated and filmed them. When she tried to finish the connection in 2018, Combs raped her, she alleged.

The lawsuit was settled someday after it was filed for an undisclosed sum.

In an announcement shared by her legal professionals, Ventura mentioned she wished to resolve this matter “on phrases that I’ve some stage of management.”

Combs mentioned: “We’ve got determined to resolve this matter amicably. I want Cassie and her household all the very best. Love.”