A felon was convicted Monday of special circumstances murder for trying to shoot a gang rival but instead gunning down a man who was working a food truck in a Santa Ana neighborhood on Father’s Day six years ago.

An Orange County Superior Court jury deliberated for less than three hours before finding Jose De Jesus Gomez-Ochoa guilty of a first-degree, gang-related murder for the 2016 slaying of Eliu Armando Gramajo in the 1700 block of Evergreen Street.

Gramajo, a 52-year-old father of three, was well-known and well-liked in the neighborhood, but his food truck – which bore bullet holes from earlier shootings – also stood as the “demarcation line” between two long-warring street gangs.

On a 100-degree-plus Sunday on June 19, 2016, prosecutors say, Gramajo was struck by gunfire apparently meant for a gang member who was picking up food at the truck.

Several residents of the neighborhood reported hearing four or five gunshots shortly after 7 p.m. and seeing a man with a gun run through an alley followed by a truck peeling out of the neighborhood.

The question for jurors was whether Ochoa fired the fatal shots, as prosecutors alleged, or whether the gunfire came from a member of a rival gang, as Ochoa’s attorney countered.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Janine Madera told jurors during closing arguments last week that Ochoa fired at least five shots toward the food truck from around 190 feet away, attempting to hit Vladimir Silva, a rival gang member who was allegedly standing by the truck. Instead, Madera said, at least two of the shots entered the food truck and Gramajo was struck in the upper back.

While the actual shooting was apparently not captured on security footage, a camera at a nearby laundromat showed Ochoa parking his pickup truck in an alley, walking with what appeared to be a gun in his hand out of the alley while a second man stayed by the vehicle, then moments later running back to the truck and driving rapidly away.

In calls recorded following his arrest, Ochoa allegedly told his mother “I killed him” and “He was innocent,” in apparent reference to the food truck owner, later adding, “They have video, they have everything.” Ochoa’s defense attorney during the trial challenged the translation of portions of the recorded calls, which were in Spanish, claiming Ochoa actually said he “didn’t kill him.”

Ochoa’s attorney, Marin G. Stapleton Jr., during his own closing arguments last week, said that gang investigators “got the wrong guy.” The defense attorney told jurors that Silva – the rival gang member and alleged would-be target of the shooting – claimed to police at times during his interrogation that it was a member of his gang who fired the shots that killed Gramajo.

Gomez – who has prior convictions for drug dealing and possession of a firearm by a felon – is scheduled to return to court for sentencing on July 15. He faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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