Seventeen alleged MS-13 gang members and their associates are facing federal racketeering charges in connection with the murder of a Hempstead bouncer, assaults on members of rival gangs, witness tampering, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, prosecutors announced Friday.
A dozen of the suspects were arraigned Friday morning before U.S. District Court Judge E. Thomas Boyle in Central Islip. MS-13, short for La Mara Salvatrucha, is the largest street gang on Long Island and is primarily made up of immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala.
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Four of them, including Heriberto “Boxer” Martinez, 23, Vidal “Demente” Espinal, 22, Roger “Michichi” Alvarado, 30, and 19-year-old Carlos “Carlito” Martinez, were charged with the March 6 execution-style murder of Nestor Moreno, the bouncer at El Rancho Bar and Grill.
The murder is alleged to have stemmed from a dispute that Martinez and several other MS-13 members had with bar employees over an unpaid bar tab that escalated until Moreno sprayed mace at several of the suspects, according to court documents.
“Watch your back, it’s not going to end like this,” one of the gang members yelled as they left, according to federal prosecutors. The group made good on that threat when Espinal, while accompanied by the other three suspects, shot Moreno in the head at point-blank range with a semi-automatic handgun, prosecutors said. If convicted, the four face life in prison or the death penalty.
“Gang members are on notice that this is a top priority of our office,” said Benton J. Campbell, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
The other 13 suspects are charged with a series of violent crimes, including attempted murder, conspiracies to murder rival gang members, and assaults that claimed the life of one victim, whose name authorities did not release while leaving several others seriously injured in Nassau County since 2008. Four of these suspects face up to life imprisonment, four face up to 40 years in prison and five face up to 20 years in prison, if convicted.
One of these defendants, Emilio “Caballo” Saballos, 27, was charged with threatening and attempting to intimidate witnesses to one of the assaults in order to scare them into not giving their testimony before the grand jury, prosecutors said. The charges in this indictment supersede prior allegations against some of the same suspects brought by federal prosecutors.
“The Long Island Gang Task Force and our efforts to address gang violence are not new, but we are working with our partners on the task force with increased manpower and increased urgency to address current circumstances,” said Joseph M. Demarest, Jr., assistant director-in-charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for the New York Field Office.
The other suspects charged include: Yonis “Brujita” Acosta-Yanes, 25; Erick “Gato Seco” Alvarado, 24; Cesar Landaverde, 22, aka “Flaco” and “Rebelde”; Sergio “Pelon” Mejia-Barrera, 37; Diego Ninos, 22, aka “Veneno” and “Mico”; Elenilson “Shorty” Ortiz, 29; Giovanni “Joker” Prado, 25; Francisco “Cruiser” Ramos, 20; Walter “Scrappy” Reyes, 20; Luis “Chucky” Ruiz,
20; David Valle, aka “Niño” and “Oreo”; 28-year-old Efrain “Panico” Zuniga.
Since 2002, more than 120 MS-13 members, including more than a dozen leaders of various cliques, or local chapters, have been convicted on federal felony charges in the Eastern District. More than 50 of those MS-13 members have been convicted on federal racketeering charges. Seventeen of those defendants have received sentences of 10 years or more in prison and more than a dozen MS-13 defendants have been sentenced or are awaiting sentencing on murder convictions.
