MS-13 Gang Boss Faces Life Sentence After Murder For Hire On Teenager
On Wednesday, a leader of the MS-13 gang was pronounced guilty of orchestrating the murder of a 16-year-old boy who was found in a Queens park with near-decapitation. This gang leader, Melvi Amador-Rios, 32, was also implicated in instructing his subordinates to commit a range of other violent criminal acts.
After approximately a day of deliberations and a trial extending over two weeks, a federal jury in Brooklyn reached a verdict, finding Amador-Rios culpable. During the trial, several informants from within MS-13 testified about his brutal and ruthless leadership.
In her closing statement on Tuesday, Brooklyn Assistant US Attorney Nadia Moore stated, “The defendant was the one signing the death warrants,” alluding to Amador-Rios’s role in the heinous acts.
Amador-Rios, known by aliases “Letal” and “Pinky,” held the position of “corredor,” or leader, of the Centrales Locos Salvatruchas (CLS) clique, a division of MS-13 based in Jamaica. He was proven guilty of directing the members of CLS to carry out the murder of Julio Vasquez, a teenager who was stabbed almost 30 times in 2017. Additionally, he was found guilty of ordering an unsuccessful attack that left another 16-year-old boy paralyzed in 2016, as well as orchestrating a series of robberies.
The jury’s decision encompassed 17 out of 18 counts, including charges of murder and attempted murder in connection with racketeering. Consequently, Amador-Rios is now facing a mandatory life sentence.
During the federal case, five cooperating witnesses, including his own brother Santos Amador-Rios, 33, who was also part of CLS, took the stand. Santos Amador-Rios turned against his brother during his testimony, stating, “I love him a lot, you know, but faith has put us here. It isn’t like I want to do what I am doing right now, but I cannot rot in jail.”
Prosecutors asserted that Amador-Rios supervised the killing of Vasquez, a lower-ranking member of the clique, after suspicions arose that Vasquez might be cooperating with law enforcement due to his failure to carry out the killing of another MS-13 member.
Amador-Rios masterminded Vasquez’s demise by enticing him to Alley Pond Park, where two other members, Josue “Colocho” Leiva and Luis “Inquieto” Rivas, stabbed him brutally 34 times, resulting in near decapitation and grievous neck injuries.
The intensity of the stabbings left discernible marks on Vasquez’s skull and bones in his neck, according to the prosecution’s account. A birdwatcher ultimately discovered Vasquez’s body and alerted the authorities.
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