Lujan pleads guilty to murder
August 25, 2010 4:30 PM
BY JIM MUSTIAN, Odessa American Online
An Odessa man who pointed the finger at a fellow gang member in a 2007 fatal shooting pleaded guilty Wednesday to murder in the death of 18-year-old Hector Medrano. Israel L. Lujan, 21, received the 25-year prison sentence he was promised before he agreed to testify last December in the capital murder trial of Daniel S. Orona.
Lujan also pleaded guilty to two counts of robbery and was sentenced to 15 years in those cases, prison terms set to run concurrently with the murder sentence. In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors dismissed five pending charges — three additional robbery cases, one charge of burglary of a habitation and one charge of possession of cocaine — against Lujan.
According to the plea agreement, Lujan has agreed to testify for the prosecution in future cases, including at least one pending robbery case involving Daniel R. Schwartz, an Odessa man police said participated in a string of 7-Eleven robberies in 2006.
Lujan’s guilty plea comes more than nine months after Orona was convicted of shooting Medrano in the chest with a sawed-off shotgun and sentenced to life in prison without parole. A third defendant in the capital case, Fernando Andujo, 22, is expected to plead guilty today to murder and be sentenced to 35 years in prison.
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