MS-13 Members Behind Teen's Murder In Queens Get 35 Years: Feds

QUEENS, NY — A pair of MS-13 gang members who nearly decapitated a teen in a Queens park will spend more than three decades behind bars, federal authorities said.

Luis Rivas, 28, received a 35-year sentence Thursday after he pleaded guilty to racketeering charges.

His sentence is the same as fellow gang member and co-defendant Josue Leiva, 27, received in January, authorities said.

"The sentencings sends a powerful message to the defendants, other MS-13 members, and the community that gratuitous and senseless violence of this nature will not be
tolerated in our district," said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace, in a statement.

Both Rivas and Leiva were part of Centrales Locos Salvatruchas, a clique of MS-13 behind a wave of violence in Queens, authorities said.

They were ordered by the clique's leader, Melvi Amador-Rios, in 2017 to kill 16-year-old Julio Vasquez, a gang member whom he suspected of cooperating with law enforcement, prosecutors said.

The pair lured Vazquez to a wooded part of Alley Pond Park in May 2017, where they fatally stabbed him more than 30 times and nearly decapitated him, authorities said.

The brutal murder was among the crimes, including robbery, to which both Rivas and Leiva eventually pleaded guilty last year, prosecutors said.

A federal jury in August found Amador-Rios guilty of a slew of crimes, including ordering the hit on Vasquez. He's serving a life sentence, plus 38 years.