Aurora man guilty in gang-motivated murder

An Aurora gang member already serving a 65-year prison term for a March 2007 murder has been found guilty of another murder that took place that same month.

A Kane County jury on Friday found Lorenzo I. Alvarez, 24, of the 700 block of Spring Street, guilty of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a 24-year-old Chicago man that authorities said was gang-motivated.

Prosecutors said Alvarez and two others were driving through Aurora’s southeast side just before 7 p.m. on March 18, 2007, looking for a specific member of a rival street gang, whom they planned to shoot. But they couldn’t find that person, so they looked for any rival gang member, authorities said.

The group pulled up next to a car driven by Cedric Foster — who was not in a gang — at the corner of Lehnertz Avenue and Sherman Street. Alvarez shot his 9 mm handgun at Foster four times; three shots struck Foster in the head, according to police.

Alvarez, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, and the two other occupants of the car, wrongly assumed that Foster was a rival street gang member, authorities said.

Ezequil Rivera, 27, and Miguel Delacruz, 22, both of Aurora, also face first-degree murder charges for the killing. Their cases are pending.

On Dec. 31, 2009, Alvarez was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm for the murder of 36-year-old Oscar Campos of Aurora. Prosecutors said the March 6, 2007 murder was also gang-motivated.

Alvarez was sentenced to 65 years in prison by Judge Timothy Sheldon in October 2010. Because of the previous murder conviction, Alvarez now faces a mandatory life sentence, per state rules.

“I hope that this verdict and the impending life sentence will provide some sense of justice to Cedric Foster’s family and friends,” Kane County State’s Attorney Joe McMahon said in a written statement. “Our community is a better place today because this defendant, who showed in about two decades that he has no regard for human life, will spend the rest of his life behind bars. This defendant should serve as an example that membership in a street gang is nothing but a ticket to prison.”

Alvarez is due in court Jan. 11 for post-trial motions and sentencing.