MS-13 street gang member pleads guilty to ‘barbaric’ murder of 2 girls and 5 others in New York

CENTRAL ISSLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A high-ranking member of the MS-13 gang in New York pleaded guilty Tuesday to racketeering and other federal charges in connection with seven murders, including the 2016 killings two high school girls that brought the nation’s attention to a violent Central American street gang.

Jairo Saenz, 28, pleaded guilty in federal court in Central Islip during a hearing attended by his family members and some of the victims’ families.

“I did it and I knew it was wrong,” he said in Spanish through an interpreter after his attorney read his account of the killings in suburban Long Island, east of New York.

Saenz, who is originally from El Salvador, will be sentenced June 13 and faces 40 to 60 years in prison as part of a plea deal approved by a judge.

Prosecutors said he was second in command in a gang that operated in Brentwood and Central Islip, known as Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside. His brother, Alexi Saenz, the leader of the clique, previously pleaded guilty on similar charges and will be sentenced later this month.

The brothers admitted that they ordered or approved the killings of rivals and others who disrespected or were at odds with the clique in order to rise in the MS-13 hierarchy and bolster their group’s reputation.

Saenz’s family and lawyers did not comment outside court, but the parents of the two victims said they wanted him sentenced to life in prison.

“It was some justice, but not what I wanted,” said George Johnson, the father of Michael Johnson, 29, who was beaten and stabbed to death in Brentwood in 2016. “At least he doesn’t go out to hurt others.”

Elizabeth Alvarado complained that her daughter Niza Mickens was under 16 when she suffered a similar fate in September 2016.

“It really hurt because she had so many dreams,” her mother said outside the courthouse. “She wanted to be a veterinarian. She wanted to be a nurse like me and her dad. There are just so many things I’m missing out on.”

Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, 16, were lifelong friends and classmates at Brentwood High School when they were killed with a machete and a baseball bat by a group of young men and teenagers who chased them in a car.

Acting U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny said in a statement that Saenz engaged in “barbaric and numerous acts of senseless gang violence that turned part of Long Island into a war zone” and that MS-13 gang members “wielded guns, machetes, bats and fire” during their reign of terror.

“It is my sincere hope that today’s guilty plea will bring some measure of comfort and closure to the families of the defendant’s victims as they continue to mourn the deaths of their loved ones,” she added.

President Donald Trump, then in his first term as president, called for the death penalty for Saenz and others arrested in the killings, and blamed lax immigration policies for the gang’s violence and growth during several visits to Long Island.

Other victims in the case included Javier Castillo, a 15-year-old boy who prosecutors say gang members befriended before taking him to a secluded park and attacking him with a machete.

Another victim, 19-year-old Oscar Acosta, was found dead in the woods near the railroad tracks five months after leaving home to play soccer.

The older victims included Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, 29, who was killed by a gunman at a Central Islip deli in early 2017, and Devann Stacks, 34, who was ambushed and bludgeoned to death as he walked down a road in Brentwood.

Saenz also pleaded guilty Tuesday to three counts of attempted murder; arson; drug trade; crimes related to firearms; and conspiring to kill Marcus Bohannon, who was killed by other MS-13 members in 2016.