Youth Gets 40 Years in Slaying

A former high school baseball player with a once-promising career was sentenced Monday to 40 years to life in prison for the murder of another teenager at a Baldwin Park party, court officials said.

Pomona Superior Court Judge Robert Gustavson handed down the sentence for Michael Anthony Williams, 18, who was tried as an adult for crimes he committed while a minor.

Williams was convicted last month of second-degree murder for the March 6, 1998, shooting death of Peter Corea, 18, of La Puente, and assault on Israel Gonzalez, 19, of Montebello, according to the district attorney’s office. The Superior Court jury acquitted him of attempting to murder Gonzalez.

At the time of his arrest, coaches said, Williams was a standout baseball player at Sierra Vista High School in Baldwin Park, considered to have college-level talent.

A sheriff’s detective testified that the teenager confessed to killing Corea and wounding Gonzalez during a confrontation outside a house partyafter he interfered in a fight Williams was involved in with another person.