MS-13 gang leader Melvi Amador-Rios was sentenced to life in prison last November for racketeering charges including the hit on 16-year-old Julio “Bad Boy” Vasquez in 2016.
Courtesy of FDNY
An MS-13 gang member from Jamaica was sentenced Thursday in Brooklyn federal court to 35 years in prison for the 2017 fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old boy in Alley Pond Park in Bayside.
Luis Rivera, 28, pleaded guilty in July, and became the third MS-13 gang member to get a long prison sentence for the brutal killing of Julio “Bad Boy” Vasquez on May 16, 2017, after the teenager failed to kill his friend, thus falling out of favor with MS-13.
Rivera’s co-defendant Josue Leiva, 27, also from Jamaica, was sentenced last month to 35 years in prison. Their gang leader, Melvi Amador-Rios, 32, of Briarwood, was convicted on 17 of 18 counts by a federal jury in August following a three-week trial and sentenced in November to life in prison plus 38 years in federal prison .
“The sentencings send 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,” U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said. “We hope that today brings some measure of closure to the victims and their families.”
As proven during the trial of Amador-Rios, beginning in the fall of 2016, Amador-Rios was the leader of the Centrales Locos Salvatruchas (CLS) clique of MS-13, when he ordered Rivera and Leiva to kill fellow gang member Vasquez failed to carry out a hit ordered by Amador-Rios, who suspected the teen was cooperating with law enforcement.
On May 16, 2017, Vasquez was lured to a wooded area of Alley Pond Park where Leiva and Rivas stabbed him more than 30 times, nearly decapitating him before leaving him to die. Vasquez’s body was discovered by a bird watcher who smelled and saw his decomposing body on May 21, 2017. Leiva and Rivas pleaded guilty on July 14, 2023 to racketeering…
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