Dominican-born Ethan Astaphan, the manager of a marijuana dispensary in California, was found guilty of first-degree murder in a Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, February 26, 2024. He and the owner of the dispensary, Weijia “James” Peng, who was also convicted of murder, were accused of killing an employee and then burying his body in the Mojave Desert in 2020.
The body of the employee, Juan Carlos Hernandez of Los Angeles, was not discovered for two months after his murder.
Prosecutors argued that Astaphan, 30, and Peng killed Hernandez because they thought he was stealing money and marijuana from the dispensary. The Los Angeles Daily News reported that the prosecution “presented several WhatsApp messages exchanged between Astaphan and Peng in the two days leading up to the murder in which they first discussed firing every employee, then focused on Hernandez after Astaphan claimed he saw the victim making deals for customers during a shift.”
It is reported that Peng and Astaphan spoke about making an example of the victim with Peng once saying that he wanted Hernandez crippled for life.
“The men attacked Hernandez at the end of his shift at the dispensary, Sept. 22, 2020, with video still frames showing Astaphan taking Hernandez down to the floor and putting him into a choke hold while Peng stood above,” the Los Angeles Daily News reported on the murder.
At some point, Peng injected a lethal dose of ketamine into Hernandez. The men then loaded Hernandez’s body into the back seat of Astaphan’s SUV and, driven by Peng’s then-girlfriend Sonita Heng, took his body out to the desert, burying him in a remote area between Barstow and Baker, prosecutors said.”
The newspaper further reported that the two returned to the dispensary the following morning with surveillance cameras inside the shop showing them cleaning the area where Astaphan had taken Hernandez to the ground. The two were arrested in November 2020.
It is reported that Astaphan’s mother, father, and sister traveled from Dominica and Florida to attend each day of the trial, while his wife also attended most days.
“I’ve never been through anything like this,” Astaphan’s father told The Union newspaper. “All the families are suffering.”
Astaphan’s older sister Stephanie Astaphan was the only defense witness.
“He is not a person who engages in violence,” she said of her younger brother, according to the The Union newspaper. “I know his values. I know his heart. He confides in me. I know his character to be that of a good man.”
The two are expected to be sentenced on Thursday, April 25, 2024.
Greed, easy $$$ and murder she wrote is a byproduct of the drug industry.
But Zandoli,DNO just told you the guy is Dominican-born.You saying you don’t know if he was born in Dominica.If you do not trust DNO reporting say so.
Think about it… An Astaphan and a Chinese. No good rascals. Many people go missing here in Dominica too. Where’s Kernisha? Where’s that young man from Mahaut who went to a funeral and never came back? 98 % of suv and cars in Dominica are covered in blackness with extremely dark windows terrorizing the entire Island. When a crime is committed the police ask for help from the public to solve the problem. If a gun goes off in broad daylight from such vehicle there’s no way that the shooter could be identified by bystanders. I’m not voting for no patat party if they have no intention to make Dominica safe. Those politicians themselves love dark windows because they are in the same nasty business.
your comments have absolutely NOTHING to do with the information in this article… .How are we talking about a crime which took place in the US and you bringing up window tints in Dominica and voting… SMFH
@pro and why is this a concern to you? The same methods used in committing crimes in the US is no different than what is used in Dominica. Kidnapping and then killing. And in most cases dark tinted window vehicles are used. Clear windows on vehicles will surely reduce the crime rate in Dominica. Someone in a car was stalking me and up to this day I couldn’t say who the driver was. However, I was able to take several photos of the vehicle with its registration number. So please, stay in your lane.
.. someone was stalking me and due to the tints on the car I couldn’t figure out who it is….. I took pictures and license plate number ..”
Sounds like you solved your problem, good for you, make sure you file a report.
now what on earth does that have to do with the case of this guy committing murder inside a store IN CALIFORNIA?
Did the tints on the car kill the guy? Did you see the car thats been stalking you outside the store in california where the murders took place?
Your bulb really bright, pal!
As a Dominican myself now residing in the US, I feel very sorry for the family because I know when he moved to the US that’s not what they expected of him. As an Astaphan I don’t know what Tony is to you but I hope he come to permanently visit you soon
Why comment “as an Astaphan?”
Astaphan’s are people the same as any other; it is only in Dominica you all look up to people because of the color of their skin!
Long ago Ethan grandfather, who operated a motor mechanic shop on Bath Road opposite the Convent High School, married a black country woman, he is Tony Astaphan Uncle, he is Micheal, And Hugo father.
Tony Astaphan himself is married to a black woman from Antigua, one of the Birds of Antigua is her father. I had to laugh recently when I heard someone on Q-95 said Tony hate black people.
If Tony hate black people how come he is married to a black Antiguan, I know her entire family?
With Tony Astaphan, it’s about politics, and how much money he can make out of idiots and crooks as Skerrit.
I had the privilege of meeting two of his cousins from St. Kitts, in 1964, when one did part of his medical intern in Dominica, and the other brother, did intern in law at the High Court in Roseau, they acted as ordinary people, the…
Plain and simple, this guy is a murderer. How does this go from a heinous murder to bringing a family’s ethnicity into disrepute? Come on!
Where was the top-rated Tony Astaphan to defend his cousin? Only in Dominica and Antigua he does all his blabblabbla. The authorities could have picked him up to.
Does Tony have a license to practice law in California? You all need to grow up and offer intelligent points to a discuss and stop your petty hate and jealousy.
This reads like an episode of Breaking Bad, wow!
How many times have I heard family members refer to the kin as “good men”, either when they are shot or arrested for criminal behavior? The two are not compatible. He might have been a good man to YOU, but he is anything but a good man when he killed a person who he suspected had stolen from him.
He dealt with the situation as a typical gang member and illicit drug dealer. I hope he gets all what he deserves under the law.
I am not sure if he was born in the US, but I do not look kindly to people who leave Dominica with solid moral backgrounds, only to move to the US and adopted the worst of their culture.
Not only that, these two must be the dumbest criminals out there. They committed a crime in full view of THEIR cameras and did not take the time to delete the files.
The cameras was what broke the case. Thank God they weren’t knowledgeable enough to know that you never delete video from a hard drive, it’s always retrievable. The cops just took the camera system and ran recovery software to get back all the video files that were deleted.
Man this is a serious lost , a super sad situation all around, no winners all a big lost especially the fam of the young man!
I’m familiar with the family and they surely didn’t raise the kid to be violent! Actually raise as a kid with all the amenities in life.
The kid was influenced by bozo who is surely the wicked one !
Emotional intelligence is key in this life today.
That’s the Lord doing!
They way they injected that young man and buried him in the dessert, is cold blooded.
That is the job of experience drug dealers, who will kill you for their bounty.
Then chose a place so easily and convenience.
Those guys are serial killers!
Sad!
‘When my friend’s beard catches fire, I take water to wet mine’. Don’t be too quick to judge and pontificate my brother. We all have relatives and we ourselves still inhabit this miserable planet. During this period of Lent, we should reflect on the words of the Scriptures. “If you hate your brother, you’ve already committed murder in your heart”. By that standard, how many times have we been murderers? So pray for victim and accuse and their families. And pray hard for yourself and your family.
Man shut up: there’s nothing wrong with the planet, but something is wrong with people like you.
Something is wrong with the people who indulged in the use of mine altering drugs such as marijuana. You can support the use of cannabis, you can wet your hair with gasoline if you wish and light up!
But to try and condone murder, by using some stupid rhetoric about lent, or length which is philosophical crap invented by Roman Catholicism, which has nothing to do with God; makes no sense and is irrelevant to someone getting murdered over someone drugs.
Plenty people get murdered over that very drug; two weeks ago six or seven people were found murdered near Los Angeles.
So if you think it’s as simple as poring water on your beard keep indulging!
If I hate a murderer because he butchered my brother, does that make me a murderer also. You sanctimonious Christian hypocrites often utter unmitigated foolishness and think it’s rationality.
This guy should be not only roundly condemned but suffer the same fate as the person he killed and discarded the body in a crude, shallow grave like the carcass of an alien animal.
@zandoli you have forced me to go beyond just reading the last part of your essay. Listen, and learn something that’s very important to every one of us, especially to criminals. It doesn’t matter how we try to cover up our evil and criminal activities; we can clean up the crime scenes, delete and burn evidence, run away and hide in some far away land. The biblical truth is that, “there’s nothing hidden which shall not be revealed or made known.” There are several ways to skin a cat. What we need to do as “human beings” is to try to get along. We have all been wronged in one way or the other. So should we all go killing everyone who have wronged us? There would be no one left on this planet. Love and forgive are sometimes hard to do but let’s try to do one or the other instead of taking someone’s life.
I am glad that they were not smart enough to destroy their own electronic devices that recorded this murderous act. The investigators were able to get the incontrovertible evidence.
These two guys deserve nothing less than death by lethal injection. They took the life of a human being on mere suspicion. They have forfeited their lives. No mercy should be extended to these two savages as they did not extend any to their victim
All they had to do was to dismiss the employee from work for stealing – case closed. They went much too far committing a heinous crime which to me is unacceptable. Just as Zandoli rightly said, they behaved like illegal drug gang members involved in criminal activities. Astaphans should have known better and remembered where he came from. Unless, he still has that Syrian blood in his DNA.
“Astaphans should have known better and remembered where he came from. Unless, he still has that Syrian blood in his DNA.”( The idiot ds).
So what does Syrian blood have to do with a person deciding to murder another? What where he came from has to do with it
People murder people everyday, even in Dominica; how many Dominican, not named Astaphan has Syrian blood in their body? You were born a fool, and shall remain one!
Ethan, have been using drugs for a long time; in Miami the man have a history of arrest, even for shoplifting.
Discharged from the military due to medical disability, knowing that he could have learnt something while in the service that he could utilized for a living; rather than managing his friend drudge shop. He got hooked up with the wrong person in New York, flowed him to Los Angeles, which eventually destroyed his life!
Stop talking crap about Syrian blood because even his grandmother by father black blood is in him mixed with his black mother blood!
The sad thing is you grew up not among the elites and affluent families. You were raised in the gutters of Wesley among the uneducated and underprivileged. Your people were uneducated and worth nothing that is why they ran to Antigua to save face. Your dirt bag from Wesley.
Dog feces; let me tell you something, if you were born in the family from which I descend, your knowledge of that would have turned you crazy!
I am unique you see: I am not living under, or with a slave name. Te’le’maque came out of Africa, still found in Senegal, among the Wolof tribe. Note: “the ‘we’ the Wolof people are a West African ethnic group originate in the northwestern part of Senegal, and southwestern coastal Mauritania.
You damn dog, I have a family background that scum of the earth like you must envy. Research the ” Vessy Denmark Telemaque insurrection,” his history are taught in American universities, then you and Roosevelt figure out if I am one you wish to screw with!
We also still exists on the Ivory Coast! The name Te’le’maque originate in Africa, but can also be found in Vatican dating back to more than five hundred years! You have to kiss Roosevelt Skerrit behind to try to be somebody, I was born somebody.
In Louisiana you will find street name…
Yes, dog-sh.. as I told you if you go to Louisiana you will find street name Telemaque!
Don’t you think there is a reason for that? You piece of no name scum, my family is international, originated in Senegal we are all over Europe, the entire Caribbean; we are in business, and all type of educational insinuations.
You try to be contemptuous; talking as if Wesley is the worst place to be born.
You piece of nothing, education in Dominica began in Wesley on the Londonderry Estate. You perhaps heard the name Watty, as in doctor watty, and Rev. Watty, well their old great grandfather was the first to have a Private school in Dominica. My late grandmother born 1890, died 1993 age 103, along with her sister that’s Lois Robinson grandmother attended his school, she told me their mother paid three pence per month for them to attend.
They become walking encyclopedia, became involve in the Back To Africa Movement headed by the late Marcus Gavy.
Boy; screwing with me you will get burnt!
Your preposterous statement has proven beyond the slimmest of doubt that you severe mental constraints.
You have often boasted that you have two degrees. My question is: What educational institution(s) awarded such?
Know I fully appreciate why you are such a colossal fanatic of the Roosevelt led …….. Seriously, you need to volunteer for a brain transplant.
I am proud of my academic achievements. What are yours? I do not need you to survive. You are nothing but a street bum. All you do is keeping writing sh.. on DNO that have no impact on people and the General Elections. You are a loser, your bum.
Admin: I don’t now the source you use to get news, but you been delivering accurately for years; keep up the god work!
The victim the murdered Hernandez lived walking distance from where one of my rental property is located.
It is not funny; but, Astaphan mother was married, perhaps still marry to a relative of mine, hence he is the stepson of my relative, lived in his house!
Indeed Stephanie Astaphan, your brother was a very quiet guy; but you must also remember such people are sometimes deadly!
I am not trying to take him down, because he has already destroyed himself; I knew his grandmother, Mona, we grew up in Wesley.
I will say this though; some people take the smoking of marijuana slightly, but most of the time the first hit is the beginning of what happen to your brother!
POINTLESSSSSS
Just dismiss the employee if you all had all the evidence. Why kill him!! Based on what i read, i don’t think anyone can escape maximum punishment for killing someone in that manner. I would be extremely mad if someone did this to my pet, let alone a human being.
I still sympathise with the grieving relatives on both sides though!
It seems drugs good or bad has a particular effect of dealers they always want to kill for it.