'Drenched In Blood': MS-13 Gang Leader Pleads Guilty To 8 Murders: DOJ

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY — A high-ranking leader of La Mara Salvatrucha, popularly known as MS-13, pleaded guilty to eight murders, multiple attempted murders, arson and firearms offenses in federal court in Central Islip, federal officials announced Wednesday.

Alexi Saenz, 29, also known as “Blasty” and “Plaky,” the leader of the Brentwood/Central Islip chapter of the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside (Sailors) clique of La Mara Salvatrucha, also known as the MS-13, a transnational criminal organization, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in connection with his participation in eight murders, officials said.

The eight murders include the 2016 killings of Michael Johnson, Oscar Acosta, Marcus Bohannon, Kayla Cuevas, Nisa Mickens, Javier Castillo, Dewann Stacks, and the 2017 murder of Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, officials said.

Saenz also pleaded guilty in connection to three attempted murders, arson, narcotics trafficking and firearms offenses before United States District Judge Gary R. Brown, officials said. He faces up to 70 years in prison and a minimum sentence of 40 years in prison under the terms of his plea agreement at sentencing, officials said.

According to U.S. Attorney Peace, Saenz was the local leader of the Brentwood/Central Islip chapter of the Sailors clique of the MS-13 — one of the more powerful, violent, and well-established cliques on the East Coast of the United States. He committed the following crimes in order to maintain and increase his membership and status within the gang, and to further the mission of the MS-13 gang, federal officials said:

On January 28, 2016, Saenz and other MS-13 members were at the Jocorena Deli in Brentwood, where they saw 29-year-old Johnson and claimed to recognize him as a member of the rival Bloods street gang, officials said. Johnson was reportedly then marked as their “food,” meaning they intended to kill him, officials said.

According to information established at trial, Saenz got approval from the New York leader of the Sailors clique to murder Johnson and contacted several other MS-13 members, informed them of the plan and told them to bring weapons, including a machete and a baseball bat, to a wooded area in Brentwood, officials said. Saenz then lured Johnson to the secluded meeting location under the guise of smoking marijuana, officials said.

The MS-13 members and associates proceeded to beat Johnson with the baseball bat, stab him with a knife and took turns hacking him with the machete and fled when they heard police sirens, officials said.

Johnson was reported missing by family members and less than a week later, Suffolk County police responded to a 911 call reporting a body found in the woods by a passerby and recovered Johnson’s body on February 2, officials said. An autopsy determined Johnson’s cause of death to be sharp and blunt force injuries, Peace's office said

Then in early 2016, Saenz and fellow Sailors approved the murder of 19-year-old Acosta because they thought he was associating with the rival 18th Street gang after previously aligning himself with the MS-13, according to officials. The Sailors' leader assigned members to take the lead in planning and carrying out the murder, officials said.

On April 29, MS-13 members met Acosta in a wooded area near an elementary school in Brentwood where he'd also been lured under the guise of smoking marijuana, officials said. They brutally beat Acosta with tree limbs and knocked him unconscious, bound his hands and feet, wrapped clothing around his mouth and summoned other MS-13 members, including Saenz, officials said.

They then loaded Acosta into the trunk of Saenz’s car and drove to a secluded area in Brentwood near the abandoned Pilgrim State Psychiatric Hospital. According to Peace, Acosta was removed from the trunk while still alive and carried him into the woods where they took turns hacking him to death with a machete, officials said. Acosta was then buried in a shallow grave, officials said.

Five months later, Acosta’s body was discovered by law enforcement on September 16 during a search for another MS-13 victim. His cause of death was homicidal violence, including sharp and blunt force injuries to his head and torso, officials said.

Then on July 18, 2016, during a Sailors meeting at Saenz’s Central Islip home, Saenz instructed the group to hunt for rival gang members who had been disrespectful to the gang in order to attack and kill them, officials said.

That evening, other MS-13 members who were driving around Brentwood armed with firearms and a machete, spotted a group of men on Apple Street. Thinking they were members of a rival gang, three MS-13 members got out of the car and attacked the group, firing rounds from two different guns and then using a machete to hack at one of the men who had fallen to the ground, officials said. After the attack, the group drove back to Alexi Saenz’s house, where they hid the weapons, officials said.

During the attack, two individuals, known as John Doe 1 and 2, were injured. John Doe #1 was struck with a bullet, but survived. John Doe #2 was attacked with a machete and was permanently disfigured, officials said.

The same year, members of MS-13 were also engaged in a series of disputes with members of the Goon Squad, a rival gang in Brentwood, officials said.

On August 10, Saenz and another MS-13 member drove through the neighborhood around Lukens Avenue in Brentwood and saw several men who they believed were members of the Goon Squad and rallied other Sailors to kill them, officials said.

The MS-13 members got into two vehicles and drove toward the house where the suspected Goon Squad members had been spotted. Saenz’s car kept watch for the police, while two other MS-13 members with guns approached the group of suspected rivals and fired multiple shots in their direction, officials said.

No one was hit, although a stray bullet entered a neighbor’s house and struck the headboard of a bed in which the neighbor was sleeping, officials said.

Then on September 4, 2016, Saenz held a Sailors meeting at his home in Central Islip and along with other MS-13 members, went out hunting for rival gang members to kill, officials said.

They several cars and drove around Central Islip and Brentwood until Saenz’s group spotted 27-year-old Bohannon walking along Lowell Avenue in Central Islip in the early morning hours of September 5, officials said. Again, they suspected that Bohannon was a member of the Bloods gang and two MS-13 members with guns approached him\ and started shooting, officials said. Saenz drove them away after Bohannon was struck nine times, including in his head, neck, and chest, and eventually died from the injuries, officials said.

During the summer of 2016, Sailors clique members of the MS-13 were also regularly having altercations with other gang members in a neighborhood on Freeman Avenue in Brentwood, officials said.

On September 12, 2016, MS-13 members set fire to a car parked in the driveway of one of the houses in the rival gang neighborhood, federal officials said. Saenz directed other gang members to buy gasoline and start the fire while he drove around watching for police presence, officials said. Meanwhile, the other MS-13 gang members drove to the house and lit the car on fire, which exploded and set a nearby car on fire, officials said.

Just the next day, on September 13, Sailors brutally murdered 15-year-old Nisa Mickens and 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas, both students at Brentwood High School, officials said. According to evidence established at trial, prior to her murder, Cuevas was involved in a series of disputes with MS-13 members, officials said. About a week before Mickens and Cuevas were killed, the disputes escalated when Cuevas and several friends were involved in an altercation with MS-13 members at school which led to the MS-13 members vowing to seek revenge against Cuevas, officials said.

That evening, Saenz and other Sailors were driving in separate cars around Brentwood searching for rival gang members to attack and kill, officials said. One group saw Cuevas and Mickens walking down residential Stahley Street, called Saenz and got permission to kill the girls, officials said. They proceeded to attack them with baseball bats and a machete, hitting them repeatedly while Saenz watched for police, officials said.

After killing the teenage girls, the gang members went to Saenz’s Central Islip home where they changed clothes and hid the weapons, officials said.

Mickens' body was found that evening on Stahley Street, not far from Cuevas’ home, while Cuevas' body was discovered the next day behind a house adjacent to where Mickens’s body was found, officials said. Both girls' bodies had sustained significant blunt force trauma to their heads and bodies, while Cuevas also sustained lacerations, officials said.

In October of 2016, MS-13 members targeted 15-year-old Castillo because he was believed to be a member of the 18th Street gang, one of MS-13’s principal rivals, officials said. On October 10, several Sailors convinced Castillo, who lived in Central Islip, to drive with them around 30 miles away to Freeport to smoke marijuana, officials said.

Once there, they met Saenz and other Sailors who lured Castillo to an isolated marsh area in Cow Meadow Park, where they attacked him and hacked him to death with a machete, officials said.They dug a hole and buried Castillo’s body, which was found a year later in October 2017, officials said. Castillo suffered multiple sharp force injuries to his head, neck, torso and extremities, officials said.

On the evening of October 13, 2016, Saenz and other Sailors again drove around Central Islip and Brentwood in search of rival gang members to attack and kill when they saw 34-year-old Stacks and Saenz authorized his murder, officials said.

While Saenz again watched for police, other MS-13 members armed with machetes and a baseball bat attacked Stacks, beating and hacking him to death on American Boulevard, a residential street in Brentwood, officials said.

Stacks sustained severe sharp and blunt force trauma to his face and head, leaving his body nearly unrecognizable, officials said.

On the morning of January 30, 2017, Saenz and other Sailors targeted 29-year-old Alvarado-Bonilla inside El Campesino Deli in Central Islip, officials said. Alvarado-Bonilla was wearing a football jersey bearing the number “18,” which led the MS-13 to conclude that he was a member of a rival gang, and decided to kill him, officials said.

Several other MS-13 members obtained a mask and another vehicle that would be used to commit the murder. Alexi Saenz provided the clique’s 9-millimeter handgun for use in the murder, federal officials said.

At around 10:30 a.m., a masked MS-13 member entered the deli and shot Alvarado-Bonilla from behind multiple times killing him with a 9-millimeter handgun provided by Saenz, officials said. A bullet went through Alvarado-Bonilla’s head and hit a female employee of the deli in the chest while she was standing in front of him, officials said. The woman survived.

From about April 2016 through March 2017, Saenz sold wholesale quantities of cocaine and marijuana through other Sailors and associates in street-level sales in Brentwood and its surrounding areas to finance the gang, officials said.

Saenz reportedly used the profits to purchase guns, support MS-13 leaders in El Salvador and buy additional narcotics for further distribution.

“To say that Alexi Saenz’s hands are drenched in blood does not begin to describe the multiple killings and extreme mayhem he personally directed and committed in the span of one year in Suffolk County,” Peace said. “While those murders and violent crimes were intended to further the sordid mission of the MS-13, the defendant has failed miserably. As a result of the exceptional work of this office’s prosecutors and the members of the Long Island Gang Task Force, the MS-13 has been decimated in the district and we will continue working tirelessly to hold every one of these violent gang members accountable for the crimes they have committed and harm they have caused. It is my sincere hope that today’s guilty plea brings some measure of solace and closure to the families of his victims.”

Saenz’s guilty plea follows a series of federal prosecutions by Peace’s Office for the Eastern District of New York targeting members of MS-13.

The MS-13’s leadership is based in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, but the gang has thousands of members across the United States. With numerous branches, or “cliques,” the MS-13 is the most violent criminal organization on Long Island, according to federal officials.