In 1989, Ronaldo Ayala was sentenced to death for murdering three men in a San Diego auto repair shop.
Instead of facing the gas chamber at San Quentin, the reputed Mexican Mafia member turned death row into a base of power, law enforcement authorities and gang defectors say, collecting extortion payments, trafficking drugs and orchestrating acts of violence through a vast network of underlings from San Diego to Seattle.
Ayala, 74, now faces racketeering charges brought by federal prosecutors in Sacramento, who allege the National City native conspired with members of the Sinaloa cartel to distribute methamphetamine, heroin and fentanyl throughout the western United States…