SALINAS, Calif.- Police arrested Phillip Mendes Sparks last year during a big gang bust.
He's a Salinas business owner and the highest ranking Nuestra Familia gang member on the Central Coast, who's not in prison. His trial is nearly two years in the making, but there's a reason it's taking so long.
Opertion street sweep put phillip mendes sparks on the map for all of you---but inside the gang under world sparks had already made a name for himself as the salinas regiment commander of the military-like structure of the nuestra familia.
The owner of Forbidden XTC on West Market St., Sparks was the go between for the gang leaders in prison and the soilders on the streets, the nortenos.
Sparks has been in federal court over a dozen times since he was arrested in August of last year, and the case against him seemed to go nowhere.
He is scheduled to be in court again in February of next year, and it's all because of a different case.
The U.S. Attorney's Office declined an interview Monday, but sent a copy of the other case as an explanation saying "this is a Nuestra Familia gang drug trafficking conspiracy and a fairly big case with many defendants and a lot of evidence."
The case is against five of the highest ranking NF members. Basically, both cases will be rolled into one.
Not only Sparks but Armando Valle who was arrested in Watsonville the same day, and is the regiment commander for Santa Cruz, will be a part of a much larger case.
So far the U.S. Attorney's Office have 209 DVDs and CDs, over 19,000 pages of evidence, and close to 40 wire taps recorded.
