The man accused of stabbing former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin is a former high-ranking member of the Mexican Mafia who has survived multiple attempts on his life and testified against the gang, court records have revealed. 

The storied history of 52-year-old John Turscak resembles something out of a mobster movie. Once a dedicated member of one of America's most notorious prison gangs, Turscak was involved in a power struggle within the Mexican Mafia in the late 1990s at the same time, he made a secret deal to be an informant for the FBI.

Along the way, he was accused of involvement in murder and kidnapping plots, he survived an Easter Sunday 1998 attempt on his life, then years later ended up taking the witness stand against the very same Mexican Mafia with whom he struggled for control over drug markets in Southern California. Then, while housed in USP Atlanta in 2003, Turscak survived an attack by his cellmate that he blamed on the Bureau of Prisons for failing to keep him safe amid his documented government cooperation, court records show. 

In researching this story, VladTV reviewed hundreds of pages of court transcripts, unsealed FBI reports, and a handwritten lawsuit filed by Turscak himself. 

Turscak was serving a 30-year prison term for racketeering and murder conspiracy yet had only three years left on the sentence when he allegedly used a prison shank to stab Chauvin 22 times inside a law library at FCI Tuscon on Nov. 24. He later told prison officials that he was pleased the attack occurred on Black Friday because it was "symbolic" of both the Black Lives Matter movement -- given Chauvin's conviction of murdering George Floyd in 2020 -- and Turscak's Black Hand tattoo, a Mexican Mafia symbol that remains emblazoned on Turscak's skin, according to prison records. 

Within the Mexican Mafia, Turscak was known as "Stranger." In the late 1990s, he and several allies in the gang began feuding with a man named Mariano "Chuy" Martinez and his respective crew. The feud arose after Martinez, "who already had territories in East Los Angeles, began moving into several other areas of the city and was considered to be getting too big" by Turscak and others in the gang, a former member-turned-informant named Max "Mono" Torvisco would later tell the FBI, court records show. 

The schism led to violence, distrust, and several murder attempts. At one point during the Spring of 1998, Turscak plotted to kidnap an ally of Martinez named Rolo Ontiveros by luring him to a vehicle where hitmen were waiting, according to Torvisco's statement to the FBI. 

What no one knew at the time was that in late February 1998, Turscak had signed a cooperation agreement by the FBI. In that agreement, obtained by VladTV, the FBI pledged to pay Turscak $2,000 per month in exchange for information and testimony and specifically directed Turscak to cease "any unlawful activities except insofar as the FBI determines that such participation is necessary to this investigation."

But prosecutors would later learn that Turscak was playing both sides of the fence, resulting in the U.S. Attorney's office charging him in an alleged murder plot. He was sentenced to 30 years and still required to testify, but the prosecutors would later describe him in court papers as an "unreliable witness" who simply used his testimony to try and get people he didn't like in trouble. 

"Turscak harbored obvious animosity toward the government due to the government's decision to prosecute him for the unauthorized criminal conduct he engaged in while an FBI informant," Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Dugdale wrote in an August 2008 legal filing.

On Easter Sunday, 1998, Turscak was at a family gathering in Atwater Village when two Mexican Mafia foot soldiers drove up and sprayed him and his family members with bullets. No one was killed in the shooting, and Turscak avoided gunfire by ducking under a vehicle.  Torvisco would later testify he was angry at the shooters because they weren't Mexican Mafia members and, therefore, didn't have the right to kill someone who was. 

Torvisco added, though, that he was so angry at Turscak at the time that Torvisco wanted to kill him personally, according to a transcript of the hearing. He testified there were other attempts to kill Turscak, including one where two hitmen waited for him with guns and walkie-talkies at an area he was known to frequent, but he never showed up. 

After the Easter Sunday shooting, Martinez left a voicemail on the phone of one of Turscak's close friends in which he laughs and references his "Easter Salundas," according to an unsealed FBI report. 

Martinez, Torvisco, and many others were all ultimately charged with racketeering for involvement in a Nov. 19, 1998, triple murder and other gang-related crimes, court records show. 

Years into his incarceration, in 2003, Turscak was attacked by his cellmate after paperwork confirming his government cooperation was widely distributed, he wrote in a lawsuit filed two years later. He wrote that he was housed in the same yard as a co-defendant who knew of his cooperation and that after being stabbed and spending a week in the hospital, no one tried to interview him, "although I have expressed a desire to press criminal charges." 

"I ask the court to grant this petition in all fairness before I end up murdered or lose my sanity waiting for the BOP to transfer me," Turscak wrote. 

Written by: Nate Gartrell