A judge today sentenced Jorge Alejandro Lopez, 35, a semi-transient resident of Santa Ana, to 16 years to life
in state prison for murdering a man at a homeless encampment by beating him with his fists,
stomping on his head and slamming a 16-pound concrete boulder on his chest.
Marco Rojo Nieto, 36, who died at the scene of the July 17, 2010, murder, left behind a wife and teenage daughter.
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Lopez, a transient who sometimes lived with relatives, walked up to Nieto around 11:30 that morning and, without provocation, punched
the 36-year-old in the face, knocking him to the ground. Lopez then kicked and stomped on the defenseless Nieto's head. The killshot came when Lopez picked up a 16-pound concrete boulder and slammed it into Nieto's chest. He died a short time later.
A jury this past March 12 convicted Lopez on one felony count of second degree murder with a true finding on the sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon. He then faced a maximum sentence of 26 years to life.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.