Inmate coordinated ‘execution-style’ killing of police informant, AZ officials say
A man accused of orchestrating the killing of a police informant while in prison was ordered to serve decades more behind bars, Arizona prosecutors said.
Jonathan Peterson, 41, was sentenced to nearly 43 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and participating in a criminal street gang, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said in an April 1 news release.
His attorney declined to comment in an April 2 email to McClatchy News.
Peterson is accused of arranging “the execution-style murder” of Juan Raygoza in October 2017, prosecutors said. Peterson was serving 24 years in connection with gang-related crimes, and he coordinated the killing with a cellphone that was smuggled in, according to prosecutors.
Raygoza was acting as an informant for law enforcement, prosecutors said.
“Peterson colluded with accomplices outside the prison to lure Raygoza to the place where he was ultimately killed,” according to prosecutors.
Later, “two of the accomplices in the plot were also methodically executed, and yet another was targeted in an attempted murder,” prosecutors said, adding that “investigators used extensive cellphone analysis, accomplice statements, recorded jail and prison calls, and ballistics evidence to build the case.”
In the news release, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said the killing “was meant to intimidate and silence others.”
Peterson’s new sentence starts in 2029, “after (he) completes his current prison terms,” according to prosecutors.
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