The inmates referred to Arthur Basaldua disparagingly as “the Mexican” four years ago when he got busted in the Iberia Parish jail for beating a podmate in the face with a padlock in a sock.

Years later, the FBI would dub Basaldua the “ring leader” of a local methamphetamine enterprise that was caught smuggling drugs from California into Acadiana. He has been called a thief and a gangster, linked to the violent Cuatro Flats gang of east Los Angeles.

But as of this week, he can be called a convicted felon in Iberia Parish after he pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted first-degree murder for a 2007 shooting in which he fired at two bail bondsmen who had gone to his Loreauville mobile home to revoke his bond.

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Basaldua, 29, had been arrested about a month earlier in Lafayette on various drug charges and did not take kindly to their efforts to persuade him to turn himself in.

According to a court affidavit, Basaldua spoke for about an hour with the bondsmen, Valerie King of Breaux Bridge and Eddie Mackenzie of Youngsville, and had agreed to leave with them that March evening.

But Basaldua abruptly reached into a desk drawer and produced a silver handgun that he began pointing at his visitors as they sat on the couch, the affidavit states. Mackenzie told sheriff’s deputies he tried to wrest the gun from Basaldua’s grip when it began going off.

Before it was all over, King had been shot in the thigh and shoulder and narrowly missed taking a bullet to the forehead, the authorities said. Mackenzie was shot in the lower abdomen in the attack.

Sid Hebert, Iberia Parish sheriff at the time, said his deputies shut down the roads leading in and out of Loreauville for three hours while detectives and FBI agents searched for Basaldua. They found him the next day hiding in a house in a Laotian community near Coteau and arrested him without incident.

As it turned out, federal agents had been tracking Basaldua’s drug activities, and the federal charges they levied against him and his cohorts would be said to illustrate a trend of urban-based gangs shifting their activities to more rural areas in an effort to evade law enforcement authorities.

A criminal enterprise

While in court Monday, Basaldua also pleaded guilty to drug charges dating back to a 2004 arrest when narcotics agents stormed his hotel room at the Comfort Inn Suites here and found him in possession of several illegal drugs and a handgun that was stolen from the Fort Worth Police Department.

Basaldua is to be sentenced June 3 on the Iberia Parish charges, but the details of his penalty remain undetermined because he is awaiting federal sentencing next week for his role in the methamphetamine conspiracy.

In December, he pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of continuing criminal enterprise for which he is required to serve at least 20 years without parole. Federal prosecutors said Basaldua organized the distribution of methamphetamine for more than five years — between February 2002 and March 2007 — by providing stolen vehicles for his “co-conspirators” and collecting money from the sales. To protect the integrity of the operations, Basaldua also installed surveillance cameras at his residence.

After his arrest at the hotel in December 2004, Basaldua spent almost a year and a half in the Iberia Parish Correctional Center as he was held on $500,000 bond, but that did not stop him from keeping tabs on the drug sales. Federal court papers show Basaldua made “numerous” phone calls from the jail in which he discussed drug sales.

He also wrote at least two letters from the jail in spring 2006 in which he organized drug trafficking to take place both while he was in jail and upon his release. That spring, Basaldua’s bond was reduced to $125,000 even though narcotics agents, upon further investigating, had determined Basaldua was a “member of a very violent gang” in Oakland, Calif.

On May 19, 2006, Basaldua was set free.

Uncertain roots

Investigators have said they are uncertain as to why Basaldua decided to move to Acadiana. From local court papers, it is unclear where, exactly, Basaldua is from, though there appears to be some consensus that he is from California: He had one known address in Los Angeles and also appears to have spent time in Oakland.

But regardless of where Basaldua has rested his head, his brushes with law enforcement have been frequent and well documented.

The Los Angeles Times reported in October 2000 that local authorities were searching for Basaldua in connection with a drive-by shooting in which a 10-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet. He appears to have evaded capture for more than a year, according to news reports.

According to the Santa Fe Springs Parole Office, Basaldua did time in California for disregard of safety, though it wasn’t clear whether that charge was related to the shooting because Basaldua’s information has been removed from their system.

A public records search indicates Basaldua lived in Fort Worth, Texas — where the police officer’s gun was stolen — before making his way to New Iberia. He also spent nearly a year in jail there for possession of marijuana.

In any case, prosecutors have expressed relief that Basaldua is off the streets for the time being.

“Basaldua and his associates are part of a network of suppliers and traffickers that has created many drug addicts,” U.S. Attorney Donald W. Washington said in announcing Basaldua’s federal conviction. “They have peddled poisons that destroy or negatively impact lives, families and communities.”