A “jefe” in the Hammond Latin Counts found guilty for the 2015 shooting deaths of a 16-year-old girl and a 33-year-old man has been sentenced to three consecutive life terms in prison.
Eduardo Luciano, now 35, will also serve 20 years on a conspiracy charge consecutive to the three life terms, U.S District Court Senior Judge Jon DeGuilio ruled Wednesday afternoon. Luciano was convicted in 2022 in the deaths of Lauren Calvillo and Christopher White as well as being a defendant in a RICO case involving the Counts.
The sentencing in the case was delayed on the outcome of a U.S. Supreme Court case regarding sentencing guidelines, DeGuilio said.
Russell Brown, Luciano’s attorney who took over after Luciano fired his former attorney John Cantrell, said in his remarks that Luciano was neither the shooter nor the getaway driver on June 29, 2015; and that Ivan Reyes, one of the defendants who testified against Luciano, said he was also a leader in the gang. Brown said he found it “interesting” that Luciano was getting sentenced before Reyes, who will be sentenced later this month, and asked that Luciano be sentenced to 50 years and 20 years on the conspiracy to be served concurrently.
For his part, Luciano, sporting a Porter County Jail uniform and braided hair, apologized to his three daughters and family, saying that seeing his family suffer, he now understands what Calvillo’s and White’s families are going through. He then outlined how being abused by a relative and raised in bad neighborhoods contributed to “his downfall.”
“I was associating with people who didn’t want better for me, let alone themselves,” Luciano said in a statement.
Luciano then tried to explain how Reyes was the real culprit, to which DeGuilio reminded him that Wednesday’s proceedings were “not a time to reassess the case.”
Penny Robinson, Chris White’s eldest sister, took the packed courtroom through her brother’s last months after he’d been shot. Another sister who was with White during the shooting remains broken because she “had to leave him behind” to get her young children away from the shooting, Robinson said, and his hospital bills ended up costing $1.2 million.
“You didn’t even acknowledge my brother,” Robinson said to Luciano. “It’s hard to have mercy for you.”
Lisa Roberts, Lauren’s cousin, said she doesn’t believe Luciano understands any of what their families went through because he spent his statement blaming everyone else for his predicament.
“You need to man up and take it like everyone else,” she said.
Lauren’s mom, Ollie Hubbard, said the words wouldn’t come as she tried to write her victim impact statement, so she read a letter Lauren wrote to her the Thanksgiving before she died.
“I feel like Lauren’s death has now overshadowed her life, and I want to change that. It’s a shame you didn’t know her,” Hubbard said to Luciano. “My daughter was a princess who gave and gave and gave, even her own life.”
Hubbard also pointed out that her son, Joe, was only 12 when Lauren died, so he stole his childhood from him as she moved him around out of fear of retaliation from the Latin Counts.
“I had to work with your mother (Carmen Luciano), who told me that I was once beautiful but that I let myself go because of my daughter’s death,” she said. “But I cried for your daughter who sat here during your trial because you’re leaving her behind. They didn’t tell you to become the way you are.”
DeGuilio said that even if he didn’t shoot or drive, Luciano was more culpable for the deaths because Luciano ordered his rank and file to shoot into the vigil and killing as many Latin Kings as they could after scoping out the vigil on Beall Street before the shooters came.
“You were well aware of the proximity, and you the carnage. You clearly had no concern and even seemed excited at the prospect,” DeGuilio said.
U.S. Attorney Clifford Johnson in a press conference after the sentencing said that getting to Wednesday was a marathon rather than a sprint, but his team and all the law enforcement involved were up to the race.
“This office and its partners are committed to our duties, and that will never waiver,” Johnson said.
Luciano was remanded after sentencing.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
