MS-13 leader to be sentenced in racketeering case involving 8 murders
Central Islip, NY – The chief of an MS-13 click in the suburbs of New York is confronted with the conviction on Wednesday in a federal racketeering case involving eight murders, including the murders of two high school students in 2016 who focused the attention of the nation on the violent American central street gang.
Alexi Saenz pleaded guilty last year for his role in the prescription and approval of murders as well as other crimes in a wave of bloody violence that prompted President Donald Trump to make several visits to Long Island and to demand the death penalty for Saenz and other gang members during his first mandate in the White House.
Saenz lawyers are looking for a 45 -year sentence behind bars, but prosecutors want the judge to impose the maximum sentence of 70 years.
Prosecutors, who had previously withdrawn their intention to ask for the death penalty, said Saenz deserves to live his prison days for his “insane” and “sadistic” crimes.
“The eight victims who lost their lives did nothing to deserve what the MS-13 did to them,” they wrote in legal deposits before Wednesday’s hearing. “The accused and the others killed them at the service of the gang without remorse or any respect for them as human beings.”
But the lawyers of Saenz pleaded for the leniency, affirming in their own legal deposits that the man today in remorse and “in a takeover trip” when he was incarcerated.
“Over time and reflection, it is difficult for Mr. Saenz to reconcile the person he is today with the person he was when he has committed the crimes,” reads their memo of determining the penalty. “He is deeply sorry, and although he knows that families may not accept his apology, she is sincere, and he accepts full responsibility for his participation in these crimes.”
The lawyers of Saenz also say that he suffers from intellectual disabilities and lasting trauma of an abusive father and difficult education in Salvador. They say that Saenz was recruited and involuntarily “neat” MS-13 because he was a high school student “easily influenced” and “gullible” in Long Island.
Prosecutors, however, thwarted that Saenz remained “firmly anchored” in MS-13 when he was in a federal locking in Brooklyn in the past eight years.
They quoted photos of him posing with other gang members behind bars and displaying gang panels and gang will. They also say that Saenz was disciplined for having attacked other prisoners, refusing the orders of the staff and having sharp metallic rods, mobile phones and other smuggling.
“Indeed, the same model of violence and chaos that marked his life in the street has not decreased over time,” wrote the prosecutors.
Saenz, also known as “Blasty” and “Big Homie”, was the leader of an MS-13 clique operating at Brentwood and Central Islip known as Locos Salvatruchas WestSide.
He admitted last July that he had authorized the eight murders and three other attempts to murder the perceived rivals and others who had lacked respect or Sirex with the clique.
Saenz has also admitted criminal fire, firearm offenses and drug trafficking – whose product was devoted to the purchase of firearms, more drugs and the largest contribution to Gang MS -13.
Among the murders, Saenz supervised, there was the death of Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, friends and classmates from Brentwood who were killed with a machete and a baseball bat.
The other victims included Javier Castillo, 15, from Central Islip, who became friends with gang members to be shot dead with a machete in an isolated marsh.
Another victim, Oscar Acosta, 19, was found dead in a wooded area near the railways almost five months after leaving his Brentwood home to play football.
MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, is a transnational criminal organization that would have been founded as a neighborhood street gang in Los Angeles in the mid-80s by people fleeing civil war in Salvador.
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Follow Philip Marcelo at https://x.com/philmarcelo
