Lara is accused of shooting 21-year-old Joanna Maria Orozco of Santa Paula near Las Piedras Park after a verbal altercation. He is also facing charges for shooting her companion, Shane Joseph Longoria, 22 of Fillmore, during the same incident.When Orozco and Longoria arrived at a Saticoy Street home to pick up a friend on Nov. 7, Lara asked if Longoria, whom he had never met before, if he was a gang member. He then briefly argued with Orozco - also a stranger to Lara - before they left the house to wait outside for a friend. Lara told the people inside the house - who had seen him playing with a gun - that he was stepping outside to smoke and then gunshots were heard.The gun allegedly used by Lara has been linked to the October murder of an Oxnard transient and ex-con, 41-year-old James Boyce, who was walking to the Rescue Mission when he was gunned down near railroad tracks.Lara’s next court hearing will be October 19.
Isaac Lara’s attorney to challenge DA’s bid for trial as adult
December 06, 2000
Santa Paula News
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula TimesThe defense attorney for an Oxnard resident who allegedly killed a Santa Paula woman on November 7 has vowed he will fight the decision by the District Attorney’s Office to try his 17-year-old client as an adult.Isaac Daniel Lara, a former Santa Paula resident and gang member, is the first teenage murder defendant in Ventura County to be charged as an adult under Proposition 21.Under the proposition, approved by voters in March, prosecutors can forego Juvenile Court proceedings and directly file charges in Superior Court against those under 18 years of age accused of certain felony offenses.Lara has been charged with murder, attempted murder, shooting at an occupied vehicle and using a firearm, appeared in Superior Court on November 21. He did not enter a plea.During the hearing, Public Defender William Markov told the judge he plans to file a motion in opposition to the decision to try Lara as an adult. The challenge could be the first against the new law.
