Illicit Fencing Operation Murder
RIVERSIDE (CNS) – A convicted felon who fatally shot his partner in a stolen goods fencing operation and buried the victim’s remains in a Mead Valley field was sentenced Friday to 50 years to life in state prison.
A Riverside jury last month deliberated roughly three days before finding 41-year-old Ricardo Pardo of Perris guilty of first-degree murder in the 2021 slaying of 27-year-old Joshua Crosier of Hemet. Along with murder, the panel convicted Pardo of sentence-enhancing gun and great bodily injury allegations.
During a hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice Friday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Jason Armand imposed the sentence required under state law for the defendant’s crimes.
According to a trial brief filed by the District Attorney’s Office, Pardo and Crosier were sometime partners in an operation that involved selling stolen property, mostly guns and electronics, including small aerial drones.
In August 2021, Crosier got behind paying the defendant for some of the items that Pardo had given him to sell, leading to animosity, the brief said. There were additional conflicts related to one of the defendant’s girlfriends.
Late on the night of Aug. 28, Crosier became intoxicated while celebrating his birthday at a bar and then contacted Pardo about meeting him to discuss unspecified issues at the mobile home where one of the defendant’s girlfriends resided on Patterson Avenue, near Rider Street, in Mead Valley, prosecutors said.
Pardo later gave sheriff‘s detectives different accounts of what transpired during the encounter. But the gist of it was that the victim initiated deadly contact. Pardo told investigators he was sitting on the bumper of his vehicle, talking with Crosier, when the victim abruptly “kicked him in the jaw, knocking out two of his teeth,” the brief stated.
The defendant claimed Crosier pulled a handgun and leveled it at him, culminating in a “struggle for the gun, then it accidentally went off, striking the victim,” according to court papers. By Pardo’s own admission, he then looked for a soft patch of soil along a fence line near the trailer and buried Crosier in it.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Steve Brosche said the victim’s girlfriend, whose identity wasn’t disclosed, reported him missing within a couple of days, leading to a missing person investigation that turned into a homicide investigation when, in April 2022, detectives received an anonymous tip indicating Crosier was dead.
Detectives procured evidence pointing to Pardo as the assailant, and he was arrested without incident on July 28, 2022. The victim’s remains were recovered less than a week later.
An autopsy revealed Crosier had been shot point-blank through the head with a shotgun.
Court records show Pardo had prior convictions for receiving stolen property, illegal possession of a firearm and possession of drug paraphernalia.
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