The wife of a man who was convicted of killing his wealthy boyfriend in Mexico was sentenced June 16 to 21 months in federal prison for conspiring to obstruct justice in which she gave a false alibi for her boyfriend to authorities.
Taylor Marie Langston, 21, of Chula Vista, was hoping to get probation or home detention. Her sister tearfully rushed out of the courtroom. U.S. District Court Judge Jeff Miller allowed Langston to surrender to prison by July 21. She is free on $50,000 bond.
David Enrique Meza, 27, of Otay Mesa, was convicted May 2 of killing Jake Clyde Merendino, 52, who was stabbed 22 times and had his throat slashed on a darkened road between Rosarito and Ensenada in Baja California.
After seven days of deliberations, the eight woman, four man jury convicted Meza of killing an American citizen in a foreign country and conspiracy to obstruct justice. He is facing a life term in federal prison when he’s sentenced Aug. 7. He remains in federal prison without bail.
Langston was also in Mexico when Merendino was killed; she was nine months pregnant at the time. She wasn’t at the murder site and had never met Merendino. Her lawyer said she didn’t know her then-boyfriend was seeing a man and knew nothing about Meza appearing on gay porn Web sites under other names.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ciaffa asked for a 37-month prison term, saying “she covered up a murder and obstructed a murder investigation.” Ciaffa said “she was sharing the profits” of Meza’s relationship with Merendino, who had given her boyfriend a $45,000 sports car, money for nursing school and a motorcycle.
Meza submitted a handwritten will supposedly written by the victim to the probate court in Texas, claiming he was the sole beneficiary of Merendino, who was wealthy. Merendino had already prepared a will in 1998 with an attorney whom he instructed to donate his estate to worthy animal causes.
Langston’s attorney, Don Levine, argued Langston met Meza when she was 16 years old and was naive. He described Meza as “an abuser, male prostitute and a murderer.”
Levine wrote in court papers that Meza often forced Langston into sex, battered her, and once pushed an empty bookcase onto her. He filed documents showing that Meza was arrested for battery on her in 2014.
Meza was later placed on three years’ probation for domestic violence and ordered to attend a 52-week domestic violence recovery program.
“She might have ended up like Jake Merendino,” said Levine. “She was the victim of lies and deceit.”
Levine noted that Langston is the full time caretaker for her 2-year-old daughter and described her as “a wonderful mother.” The baby had been taken away by Child Protective Services when Langston and Meza were arrested in December 2015, but a Juvenile Court judge ordered the baby be returned to Langston’s custody after she posted bond as part of a reunification plan.
Miller wanted to know what specific damage Langston did to the case. She pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, but she was not charged with murder. Ciaffa said Langston’s lies to authorities delayed the investigation by 17 days. When she was first questioned in June, 2015, Langston claimed she and Meza were with a friend in Tijuana the night of the murder. When investigators interviewed the friend, he said he had not seen the couple in years.
“Her lie was also constructed to protect herself,” said Miller.
Miller said Langston’s age and having a young child were factors he considered in imposing a lesser sentence than what the prosecutor sought or the 70 months that federal sentencing guidelines recommend. The probation department recommended three years in prison.
The victim’s two cousins wrote letters to the judge asking for longer sentences. Jennifer Sojka wrote that she had to identify her cousin’s body in the Rosarito morgue and it traumatized her. “That picture has become ingrained in my mind forever and I think of it most every day,” she wrote.
Sojka wrote that she signed eight pages of words in Spanish and she had no idea what she was signing. She said the coroner acted as an interpreter. “I was still in shock from viewing Jay’s body. I think the worst part was imagining what he went through; how scared he must have been and the horrible pain he must have felt,” she wrote.
Another cousin, A. Mark Faggard, wrote that the proposed sentence in the plea agreement of 36 to 48 months was “much too lenient.” He wrote that family members felt Langston’s sentence should range from 8-10 years.
While Langston has been free on bond, she has worked for a business known as Happy Head Massage, according to a letter from the firm’s owner. Langston’s duties were in bookkeeping, scheduling, data entry and cash management, and was considered one of their best employees, the letter said.
