3 defendants plead guilty to attacking man in Palm Springs in 2020

Three men accused in a 2020 attack on a man in a Palm Springs mobile home park entered guilty pleas to assault charges today.   

Angel Valtierra, 26, Nathan Roldan Ramirez, 25, and Anthony Jose Lopez, 25, each pleaded guilty to one felony count of assault resulting in great bodily injury, according to court records. A sentence-enhancing allegation of gang activity was stricken for all three.  

Ramirez also pleaded guilty to a felony count of dissuading or intimidating a witness, but several enhancements attached to the charge were stricken as well.

Case records indicate that Lopez received a sentence including three years of probation, while Valtierra and Ramirez were each sentenced to two years of probation.

According to the Palm Springs Police Department, the trio beat an unidentified man on Nov. 3, 2020, at about 6 p.m. at the Santiago Sunrise Mobile Home Park in the 1500 block of East San Rafael Drive.

The defendants were arrested the following month during a multi-agency sweep targeting a street gang that was allegedly involved in dozens of shootings and three homicides that summer in the Coachella Valley.  

More than 100 law enforcement officers served search warrants at a dozen locations in and around Palm Springs, according to the District Attorney's Office.

The warrants were obtained after gang clashes near the Desert Highlands Gateway Estates neighborhood that then-Palm Springs Police Department Chief Bryan Reyes said were responsible for an upward spike in crime in 2020.   

No weapons were seized during the sweep, but the District Attorney's Office said stolen property and items related to gang activity were found.   

None of the defendants had documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County at the time of arrest.