Thursday May 1

Police allege man helped murder suspect Orozco in February breakout

Caitlin Cassady / Bay City News

A man charged with helping a suspected murderer escape from the San Mateo County Youth Services Center in February pleaded not guilty during his arraignment Wednesday in San Mateo County Superior Court and will proceed to trial.

Martin Villa Patino, 18, is facing charges of aiding an escape, as well as gang allegations in connection with helping Josue Raul Orozco, 17, escape from the prison facility.

Patino's co-defendant Vanher Cho, 18, pleaded no contest to aiding Orozco April 9 and will be sentenced May 7.

Patino is facing a gang allegation because he and Orozco are both known members of the Sureno gang.

Patino and Cho were in the detention facility's recreation yard with Orozco at around 7:15 p.m. on Feb. 14, San Mateo County sheriff's Lt. Marc Alcantara reported. Patino and Cho allegedly helped push Orozco over a concrete wall that surrounded the yard where the three were playing basketball.

Once Orozco cleared the wall, he escaped through a hole that was cut in the chain link fence surrounding the facility at 222 Paul Scannell Drive, Chief Probation Officer Loren Buddress said.

Surveillance cameras at the detention facility show a mid-size black sedan, possibly a Chevrolet Impala, with chrome wheels pulled up to the chain link fence around the time of the escape, Alcantara said. A canine unit tracked Orozco's scent from the hole in the fence to the adjacent roadway, where the scent disappeared.

Orozco is the youngest person to be charged as an adult for murder in San Mateo County.

Orozco and co-defendant Faustino Ayala, 23, are charged with murder and participating in a criminal street gang in connection with the death of 21-year-old Francisco Rodriguez in Redwood City on July 12, 2005.

At the defendants' 2006 preliminary hearing, a witness testified he saw a man, who prosecutors believe was Orozco, get out of a vehicle the afternoon of the shooting and reach for something in his waistband. Prosecutors allege that Orozco shot Rodriguez and that Ayala was driving the car. Orozco was 14 at the time of the shooting.

Orozco was in custody on no bail status and if convicted was looking at up to life in prison, Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. A jury trial for the case was continued for the fifth time in January until May 12.