Four members of MS-13 face mandatory life sentences after a jury found them guilty in a string of crimes that included racketeering, drug-dealing, and brutal machete murders in Queens and Long Island,
The four gang members — two of whom have a seat at “La Mesa,” or the table. which oversees all of the gang’s local “cliques” across the U.S. — were convicted after a two-and-a-half month trial in Brooklyn Federal Court. The trial covered four horrific murders, and featured testimony from several members of the gang who turned cooperator, taking the stand to describe dismemberments and other gory crimes.
One of the defendants, Edenilson Velasquez Larin was convicted Friday in all four murders; the machete slaying of 18-year-old Kenny Reyes, the shooting of 20-year-old Victor Alvarenga, the shooting of 25-year-old Eric Monge, and the machete killing of 20-year-old Oswaldo Gutierrez Medrano.
Velasquez Larin, known as “Tiny,” and “Agresor”, led the Fulton Locos Salvatruchas clique, while another defendant, Hugo Diaz Amaya, or “21,” led the Park View Locos Salvatruchas clique, according to the feds. Both men sat at “La Mesa.”
MS-13 members join local chapters of the gang, known as “cliques,” spread out across Queens, Long Island and other parts of the country.
The jury found Diaz Amaya guilty in Gutierrez Medrano’s murder, while Jose Espinoza Sanchez, 26, or “Cable,” was convicted on charges relating to three of the four murders. The fourth defendant, Jose Arevalao Iraheta, or “Splinter,” was convicted in Monge and Gutierrez Medrano’s killings.
“With (Friday’s) verdict, four extremely dangerous MS-13 members have been brought to justice for racketeering crimes including murder and now, deservedly, face mandatory life sentences,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said.
The killings included the May 23, 2016, murder of Reyes, who Velasquez Larin, Espinoza Sanchez, and two members of the Hempstead Locos Salvatruchas clique chopped up in Uniondale, L.I., because they thought he was part of the rival 18th-Street Gang,
They lured the 18-year-old to a wooded area, telling him they’d be smoking pot together, but instead hacked at him with machetes, and buried his body in a hole, the feds said. Velasquez Larin and Espinoza Sanchez rose through the ranks of MS-13 because of the killing.
Man Shot To Death In Queens
Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News Victor Alvarenga was shot and killed on 45th Ave. and 163rd St., just around the corner from his home in Flushing, Queens. (Theodore Parisienne for New York Daily News)
A second victim, Victor Alvarenga, ran afoul of Velasquez Larin and Espinoza Sanchez in 2018, when he started hanging out in Flushing and bragged that he was a “homeboy,” or a full-fledged member, of another MS-13 clique. But the duo soon learned that Alvarenga cooperated with police in El Salvador, and sealed his doom.
On Nov. 3, 2018, Espinoza Sanchez and four MS-13 members stalked Alvarenga for hours until he left a bar, then walked with him for a few blocks outside his home before shooting him in the head, the feds say.
The third murder took place on Sept. 6, 2020, after Velasquez Larin green-lit the killing of Eric Monge, then a member of the Guanacos Little Cycos Salvatruchas clique, because he ran afoul of the gang leader’s Fulton clique.
A pair of MS-13 killers, both of whom had already pleaded guilty before the trial, ambushed Monge near his College Point home, waited for Monge’s wife to take his young children inside, then opened fire on Monge as he sat in the front passenger seat of his car.
Man Shot Dead Inside Car In Queens
In February 2022, Velasquez Larin and his fellow “La Mesa” leader Diaz Amaya ordered the murder of 20-year-old Oswaldo Gutierrez Medrano, a member of the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas clique, the feds allege.
A Sailors member had killed two members of the Sureños gang without permission in a federal prison in Texas, and Gutierrez Medrano had to die to balance the scales.
So his fellow MS-13 lured him to a spot in Jericho, L.I., by telling him he’d be promoted to the rank of “homeboy” after they delivered him a ritual beat-down. Midway through the beating, the knives and machetes came out, and the gang members dismembered Gutierrez Medrano, then buried his remains in the woods.
The trial was overseen by Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall —who in August sentenced another MS-13 member, Juan Amaya-Ramirez, to 45 years in prison for beating and choking a 17-year-old boy to death after using his girlfriend to lure the teen to a Queens park in 2018.
