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When 15-year-old Armen Petrosyan arrived in east Hollywood from Armenia in 1989, he was thrust into an urban environment where large, long-established street gangs--in this case, Mexican American and Salvadoran--often preyed on a smaller group of new immigrants.
Outnumbered, Petrosyan and two friends formed a defense alliance that grew into the Armenian Power street gang, which at its peak in the mid-1990s had about 120 members.
Petrosyan's Armenian Power leadership ended about 2 1/2 years ago, when he decided he would get out before he got life in prison or death on the streets, relatives said.
But last May 22, he made a fatal dining choice--he went to his old haunt for a hamburger. Like an old Mafioso mowed down during dinner, Petrosyan was shot dead as he relaxed in the patio area of his favorite Armenian restaurant, Souren's Deli on Hollywood Boulevard.
On Thursday in Los Angeles Superior Court, an eight-woman, four- man jury convicted Jose Argueta, 17, a member of White Fence, a longtime Latino gang, of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Petrosyan, 27, had not been a specific target but just happened to be seated at the wrong place at the wrong time, authorities say. He was gunned down, they say, in revenge for an act of disrespect earlier that day that did not involve him.
Argueta, a Central American native, faces 50 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 28.
"This is your classic case of gang warfare and retaliation. There was no other reason to kill Mr. Petrosyan," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Darrell Mavis, who intends to ask Superior Court Judge Mark V. Mooney to sentence Argueta to life in prison. "The defendant...