Mexican Mafia member found dead in California state prison cell

Richard Buchanan, a reputed Mexican Mafia from the San Diego area, died in prison Tuesday morning, authorities said.

Guards found Buchanan unresponsive in his cell at Kern Valley State Prison, said Terri Hardy, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The Kern County Coroner's office will determine his cause of death, Hardy said.

Buchanan, 72, had been incarcerated since 2004 for kidnapping a convict who was harassing a corrupt prison guard. From behind bars, he kept a hand in drug sales, illicit gambling, shakedowns and murder plots in San Diego County, according to court records and law enforcement officials who track the Mexican Mafia.

Buchanan grew up in the San Ysidro and Otay Mesa neighborhoods just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, he said in a deposition. He denied he was affiliated with the Mexican Mafia, but a prison official testified he was deemed a member in 1989. Authorities believed he earned his admission by stabbing an inmate, Manuel Rebeles, in a San Diego County jail in 1987.

Rebeles was a former member of the Nuestra Familia, a rival prison gang to the Mexican Mafia. He was lifting weights on the rooftop exercise yard when Buchanan stabbed him three times in the chest, investigators wrote in a report. Rebeles survived. Prosecutors argued the attack was ordered by two Mexican Mafia members from National City, Ronaldo and Hector Ayala. Buchanan was not convicted of the attack, but he spent much of the next two decades in prison for robbery, escape and other crimes.

Whenever he got out, he didn't last long on the streets. In 2004, he was working at a junk yard and living in a house in National City, an associate told the FBI. The homeowner didn't charge him rent, and the truck Buchanan drove was a gift, the woman told agents. She said people gave things to Buchanan "because he was a nice person."

An informant for the San Diego Police Department offered to pay Buchanan "taxes" if he protected the source's methamphetamine business. "I can move a pound a month, OK?" he told Buchanan in a recorded call. "I just wanted to come and talk to you personally. And — and to make sure that I'm under your wing."

"You're alright, homie," Buchanan replied. "You're alright."

The informant gave Buchanan money and a phone that was tapped by the FBI, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo. Through his phone calls, they learned of a corrupt correctional officer at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility.

Ernesto Torres was serving a short prison stint for beating his wife when he grew close with a guard, Jessica Chavez, according to an appellate decision that summarized evidence at Buchanan's trial. When Torres was released, he and Chavez struck up a sexual relationship. Torres grew possessive. Chavez told him to leave her alone.

Torres threatened to expose the relationship to her employer. "Your whole world's going to come crashing down," he said in a voicemail.

Chavez contacted an inmate at the prison who worked for Buchanan. Buchanan warned Torres to leave the guard alone. "You're messing with something that is there and it's there for a purpose," he said in a recorded call, insinuating Chavez was involved in other corrupt acts.

Chavez called to thank Buchanan. "I want to take you guys to have some drinks or something, dinner," she said. "I don't know if you guys are down or not."

"I'll give you a call," Buchanan said.

Chavez, who eventually resigned from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and pleaded guilty to making a criminal threat, testified she had sex with Buchanan's imprisoned associate because she was "grateful" for his help.

Torres, however, was undeterred. He left Chavez another voicemail: "They got ahold of me. The big homie Richie just talked to me to leave you alone. They been working on you a while."

Buchanan and an underling, Steve "Spanky" Parraz, showed up at Torres' home. "If your family wasn't here, I'd smoke you," Parraz said, according to appellate court records. Buchanan handed Torres a phone and told him to tell Chavez he'd never bother her again.

Buchanan wanted money. Torres said he had none but knew a drug dealer they could "tax." As they drove to meet the dealer at a taco shop in Chula Vista, police officers stopped the car and arrested Buchanan, Parraz and Torres. Torres was hysterical.

"I can't go back to prison," he said, according to a police report. "I'm dead. They're going to kill my family."

While jailed on kidnapping and drug distribution charges, Buchanan sanctioned Imperial County gang members to collect "taxes" in El Centro, Brawley, Holtville, Calipatria and Niland, according to an indictment. His underlings kidnapped and tortured a dealer who refused to pay, the indictment said.

Sentenced to life in prison, Buchanan maintained a grip over gangs in the South Bay area of San Diego, according to an FBI report of an informant's interview. He split with the Ayala brothers a pot of extortion money collected from the county jails that was called "the light bill," the source reported. He also partnered with the Ayalas in running illegal gambling houses, according to the report.

In 2024, Buchanan was captured on a wiretapped call talking with Ronaldo Ayala and Frank "Chino" Madriaga, a Mexican Mafia member who'd been released from federal prison. According to a complaint, Buchanan and Ayala, who was sentenced to death for a 1985 triple-murder, wanted Madriaga to track down a gang "drop out" who'd been spotted in San Diego.

Madriaga was convicted in September of conspiring to commit murder.