Official honored for fighting hate

The Anti-Defamation League has honored an Orange County prosecutor, who won a death sentence for a local white supremacist gang leader last year, for his efforts to combat hate crimes.

Senior Deputy Dist. Atty. Ebrahim Baytieh, along with two other prosecutors, Wednesday in Los Angeles was awarded the Helene & Joseph Sherwood Prize for Combating Hate.

Baytieh was honored for successfully prosecuting three members of a white supremacist gang, including Billy Joe Johnson, who orchestrated the execution of a fellow gang member who revealed gang secrets on television news.

Johnson, a Costa Mesa native and “shot caller” in the gang, was convicted of murder last year.

He testified from the stand that he’s killed at least five people. He was sentenced to death in November.

— Joseph Serna