SAN JOSE — A man who was once considered an “armed and dangerous” fugitive in a methamphetamine case has avoided prison time by pleading guilty to a federal offense after participating in a diversion program, court records show.
Cristian “C-Fresh” Mora was charged in 2021 as part of a massive criminal probe into the Nuestra Familia prison gang. The following year, authorities asked the public to help locate him, and prosecutors say his crime was delivering a pound of meth to another person for an incarcerated gang member.
But now, prosecutors have agreed that “public safety is best served by Mora’s continued rehabilitation out of custody and work toward sobriety,” which was a “major cause” of his underlying crime. They, like Mora’s attorney, argued to sentence him to no jail time and keep him on supervised release instead.
Mora turned himself in after stories surfaced in the media calling him a fugitive. He later found gainful employment and is now “planning a future that did not seem possible two-and-a-half years ago,” his attorney wrote in court records. He has enrolled in San Jose City College and hopes to become a substance abuse counselor, the lawyer wrote.
U.S. District Judge Edward Davila agreed to the sentence, despite Mora’s arrest in 2024 on suspicion of drunk driving. Prosecutors wrote that related to an incident where “Mora was not involved in a car accident and no one was injured,” but that probation services would continue to work with him.
The 2021 Nuestra Familia case, dubbed Operation Quiet Storm, targeted a range of suspected gang members and associates, from low-level drug couriers to the leaders of some of the most dangerous prison gangs in California. Several alleged Nuestra Familia leaders were convicted last year of arranging assaults and attempted homicides from behind bars, including stabbings that led to prison riots across the state.
Most of the crimes of violence, none of which involved Mora, related to internal feuds within the Nuestra Familia, which controls thousands of underling gang members throughout California.
