One night nearly 16 years ago, two men broke into the Downey home of Hermilio Franco. Franco, who owned a popular nightclub called El Farallon and acted in low-budget Mexican films, awoke when one of the intruders pressed a taser to his neck. He drew a chrome-plated .45 from under his pillow and opened fire. One of the prowlers was shot in the neck and paralyzed instantly. The other, hit in the stomach, staggered out of the house. He had vanished by the time the police arrived, his identity a mystery for the next 15 years. On Monday, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury found that Manuel “Snuffy” Quintero was the intruder who got away those early morning hours of Nov. 3, 2010. Quintero, an alleged member of the Mexican Mafia, was found guilty of murdering Franco and now faces life in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 16. Hermilio Franco was killed Nov. 3, 2010. (Los Angeles County Superior Court) Quintero’s lawyer, Cameron Talley, said he respected the verdict even if he was disappointed by it. “It’s still my belief Manny Quintero’s an innocent man,” Talley said.Quintero, 50, also faces pending charges in an unrelated case that accuse him of conspiring to murder a rapper who was attacked in the Los Angeles County jail. Talley denied that Quintero is affiliated with the Mexican Mafia, a group of about 140 men who control most Latino gangs in Southern California. Central to the prosecution’s case in the Franco murder was the account of Quintero’s paralyzed accomplice, Larry Trujillo. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Trujillo told investigators from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office and the Downey Police Department in 2014 that he broke into Franco’s home with Quintero. For reasons that have not been explained, authorities did not charge Quintero with Franco’s murder until 2025. Called to testify this month, Trujillo’s story changed dramatically. He named Quintero as his accomplice only after a browbeating from the authorities, who wanted to frame Quintero for a crime he didn’t commit, Trujillo told the jury. Talley said he found Trujillo’s testimony to be “compelling and truthful,” unlike his statement from 2014 when he was hoping to get a reduced sentence. Larry Trujillo, photographed after his arrest in 2010, was paralyzed in an attempt to rob Hermilio Franco. (Los Angeles County Superior Court) After Trujillo finished testifying, prosecutors played a video of his earlier sworn statement. Clad in a green jumpsuit and lying on a hospital bed, Trujillo said into the camera, “In the nights leading up to November 3, we had a number of various heists or home invasions, I guess you could say, we were planning to do.”Quintero came up with the idea of robbing Franco, Trujillo said. According to Trujillo, Quintero claimed Franco had ripped him off in a drug deal for $80,000. Franco’s relatives deny he was involved in organized crime, but Trujillo said the nightclub owner was known as a “heavyweight in the drug world.”“His club caters to the biggest narcos in the business, and he brokers all their deals,” Trujillo said. Franco’s club, El Farallon, hosted Chalino Sanchez and other singers of narcorridos, ballads that chronicle the Mexican drug trade. Trujillo said he and Quintero went to a Walmart where they bought an airsoft gun with a laser sight that Trujillo removed and taped onto his Smith and Wesson. “Laser beams are very intimidating,” he said. He planned to use the laser to direct their hostages inside the darkened house, he explained. Police found stacks of cash in Hermilio Franco’s safe after he was killed. (Los Angeles County Superior Court) Prosecutors displayed footage from a Walmart in Baldwin Park that showed Quintero and Trujillo purchase an airsoft gun, cellphone, screwdriver set and pack of Dentyne gum the day before Franco was killed. They also argued that a scar on Quintero’s stomach was probably from the bullet fired by Franco. According to Trujillo, the plan was to restrain Franco and his family and force him to open a safe that Quintero said contained “serious cash.” Carrying zip ties and handguns, Trujillo said, he and Quintero drove to the street behind the Franco home, where they scaled a fence and were confronted by the family’s dog, a chihuahua. Trujillo placated the dog with peanut butter and they clambered over a wall into the Franco backyard, he said. Trujillo scaled the wall easily, but the shorter Quintero was “just kicking and kicking and kicking” before he made it over, Trujillo said. Quintero made a phone call before they slipped through an unlocked back door. “That was something I think he had prearranged,” Trujillo said.Inside the house, Trujillo peered into a room and saw an unmade, empty bed, “as if someone slipped out.” He thought the person had heard Quintero scrambling over the wall and worried they were awake, he said. Quintero had warned him that Franco kept a pair of .45s in the house. Quintero beckoned to the master bedroom, Trujillo said. From the moonlight, he could see a shirtless Franco sleeping on his stomach beside his wife. As he approached, Trujillo accidentally kicked over a glass of water on the marble floor, but Franco and his wife didn’t stir. Trujillo said he grabbed Franco’s wife by the hair as Quintero pressed a taser to Franco’s neck. “Things turned into a complete disaster after he used the taser,” Trujillo said.According to Trujillo, the device was not an actual taser but a “buzzer thing from a novelty shop.” “Anybody in their right mind knows that thing doesn’t have enough power to do anything,” he said.Screaming, Franco grabbed the .45 from under his pillow and cocked it. Trujillo said he backpedaled, aimed his Smith and Wesson at Franco and fired. Franco shot back. “I was blown back against the wall,” Trujillo said. Franco fired five shots at Quintero, who jumped over Trujillo. As he fled, Franco’s daughter opened her bedroom door and caught a glimpse of a man in black clothing running out a back door. She testified she did not see the man’s face. Trujillo said Quintero wore a ski mask and told him to do the talking because he did not want to be recognized. According to Trujillo, Quintero said he’d once dated Franco’s daughter. Called to testify, Franco’s daughter Adriana denied she was ever in a relationship with Quintero, even after Quintero’s lawyer confronted her with photographs of the two arm in arm. “Isn’t that a sweetheart picture?” Talley asked. “That’s a friend picture,” she replied. “Friends take pictures.”Adriana said she met Quintero when they were teenagers. Quintero lived next to her cousin, and they became “pen pals” after he was sent to juvenile hall, she testified. Adriana testified she had no contact with Quintero after he was arrested on charges of manufacturing methamphetamine in 2001. Asked by a prosecutor if she was embarrassed by her past relationship, she replied, “He was a friend. And I regret being a friend to him.”
