MS-13 Member Sentenced To Decades In Prison For 2016 Freeport Murder

FREEPORT, NY — A member of MS-13 was sentenced to 25 years in prison today for his role in the 2016 murder of 15-year-old Javier Castillo in Cow Meadow Park in Freeport.

Eduardo Portillo had pleaded guilty in September 2021 to racketeering charges, and admitted to his involvement in the murder and narcotics trafficking. He was arrested in El Salvador in 2019 and extradited to the U.S. in November 2020 to face the charges.

“With today’s sentence, Portillo learned there are very serious consequences for participating in the planning and execution of a murder so that he could gain membership in the MS-13 gang, a vicious criminal enterprise whose members have no regard for human life or the rule of law,” stated United States Attorney Breon Peace. “That the victim in this case was a 15-year-old boy is all the more tragic, and it is my hope that dogged work of law enforcement in tracking down the defendant in El Salvador, his extradition to the Eastern District of New York, and the decades the defendant will spend in prison, brings some measure of closure to the family of the young victim.”

According to Peace, Castillo was targeted by MS-13 for death because he was believed to be a member of the 18th Street Gang, which is one of MS-13's main rivals. Portillo, who was friendly with Castillo, convinced him to leave Brentwood and go to Freeport to smoke marijuana. ONce there, Portillo and other members of MS-13 lured Castillo to an isolated of Cow Meadow Park, where they attacked him and took turns hacking him to death with a machete.

After the murder, the gang members dug a hole and buried Castillo's body.

The victim’s brother told the Suffolk County Police Department that he was told by a person who had ties with MS-13 to stop looking for Castillo because he was already “gone and buried.”

Castillo’s body was recovered in October 2017.

Portillo, who was illegally in the United States at the time of the murder, was deported to El Salvador before he was indicted for Castillo’s murder. After his indictment, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York and FBI obtained an INTERPOL Red Notice for Portillo. On February 23, 2019, El Salvador’s police located Portillo and arrested him in Morazán.