MS-13 Members Plead Guilty To Brutal 2017 Murder

UNIONDALE, NY — Two members of the MS-13 gang pleaded guilty to the August 2017 murder of Carlos Rivas-Majano, whose body was discovered ina wooded area near the Meadowbrook Parkway in Uniondale a year later.

Luis Alejandro Varela aka Felon, 24, of Mineola, and William Reyes-Fuentes aka Desobediente, 27, of Uniondale, pleaded guilty on June 24 to second-degree murder and second-degree conspiracy. Both men are due back in court on Aug. 9. Varela is expected to be sentenced to 21 years to life in prison, and Reyes-Fuentes is expected to get 20 years to life, prosecutors said.

“For more than a year, Carlos Rivas-Majano’s family was left to speculate what had happened to him, until his body was recovered in a sump by the Meadowbrook Parkway,” said Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly. “The defendants — Luis Alejandro Varela and William Reyes-Fuentes — were part of an MS-13 crew that lured the victim into that wooded area, beat him and killed him. We will continue to work with every law enforcement partner to rid our communities of this dangerous gang.”

According to Donnelly, on Aug. 11, 2017, Carlos Rivas-Majano told a family member that he was on his way home from a deli in Uniondale, but he never arrived. He was lured into the woods near the Meadowbrook Parkway and Glen Curtiss Boulevard in Uniondale, where he was hacked and stabbed to death with machetes. His body was found in the sump on Aug. 29, 2018.

The attackers were members of the Downtown Criminals clique of MS-13, who perceived Rivas-Majano to be an enemy of the gang.

A co-defendant in the case, Edar Ventura, was sentenced to 32 years to life in 2019 after pleading guilty to two counts of murder, and related charges, for the deaths of Rivas-Majano and Alexon Moya.

Cases against co-defendants Carlos Benitez-Hernandez, Jose Quintanilla-Cruz and Nerlin Chacon-Ruano are pending.