LOS ANGELES — Saying an Atwater Village gang leader appeared to think of the killings he committed as “some kind of perverse sport,” a judge sentenced him to death last Friday for the murders of three people on rival turf between 1997 and 2001.

Timothy Joseph McGhee, 35, smiled at family members as he was led away after Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry formally imposed the death sentence recommended by jurors last August.

The judge denied the defense’s request for a new trial, along with an automatic motion to reduce the jury’s death recommendation to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Perry said there was “compelling” evidence of McGhee’s participation in the Oct. 14, 1997, shooting death of Ronnie Martin; the June 3, 2000, killing of Ryan Gonzalez; and the Nov. 9, 2001, killing of Margie Mendoza.

The judge said it was his view that the prosecution had proven McGhee was also involved in a fourth killing — that of a witness against him in November 2001 — in which he was not criminally charged. That evidence was presented to jurors when they were being asked to recommend whether McGhee should be sentenced to death or life in prison without parole.

The judge said McGhee’s attitude to his crimes seemed to be “some kind of perverse sport as if he was hunting human game,” and that the jury’s recommendation of a death sentence was “fully supported by the evidence.”

“He is a committed killer and obvious danger to society,” Perry said of the defendant, who was convicted in October 2007 of three counts of first-degree murder.

Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegations that two of the murders were killed to further the activities of a criminal street gang and that there were multiple murders.

The jury also found McGhee guilty of four attempted murder charges, including two involving Los Angeles police officers who were led into gang territory on July 4, 2000, by other gang members and fired upon. The officers escaped injury.

That jury split 10-2, with the majority favoring a death sentence for McGhee. A second penalty-phase trial was held with a different jury, and that panel recommended last August that McGhee be sentenced to death.

One of McGhee’s attorneys, Franklin Peters Jr., unsuccessfully argued that “there were a lot of mitigating things in Mr. McGhee’s life that would point to a verdict other than death,” including his childhood in which he “basically grew up fatherless” after his dad moved to Alaska for work, and McGhee’s “positive influence” on the lives of young relatives, including his own three children.

Deputy District Attorney Hoon Chun countered that “the only just verdict” was death for a man who “seemed to enjoy killing.”

McGhee — also known by the monikers “Huero” and “Eskimo” — had previous “strikes” for assault with a firearm in 1989 and assault on a peace officer in 1994.

Since his conviction in the triple-murder case, he was tried separately and convicted for his participation in a January 2005 riot at a high-security unit at the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles.

McGhee was named to the U.S. Marshals Service’s “15 Most Wanted Fugitive List'' before his February 2003 arrest in Bullhead City, Ariz. He has remained jailed since then without bail.

Outside court, McGhee’s attorney said his client is “like we are, hopeful that this is not the final chapter,” referring to the fact that McGhee’s conviction and death sentence will automatically be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

McGhee’s other attorney, H. Clay Jacke Jr., said the key issues on appeal are likely to be the removal of a juror who was favoring the defense’s position during deliberations as panelists were considering whether McGhee was guilty, and the admission of the statement from the witness who was killed before McGhee’s arrest.

The prosecutor said he believed the sentence “brings a sense of justice, not vengeance” to the victims’ families, who had representatives in court for the sentencing.

“On the one hand, I think I’m most gratified for the victims and their families because I think they got a measure of justice out of this,” Chun said of the victims’ families. “On the other hand, looking at this defendant, the thing that got him the death penalty is that he’s irredeemable. He still has no sense that what he did was in the least bit wrong.”