Judge: Teen to face trial as adult

Reaffirms earlier ruling in murder case involving alleged MS-13 member

Maryland’s chief federal judge has ruled that an alleged MS-13 member accused of participating in two gruesome murders when he was 15 years old will be tried as an adult with other alleged members of the gang.

It is rare for someone accused of committing crimes as a youth to be tried as an adult in federal court. But Chief Judge James K. Bredar said the allegations in the case — that the defendant helped remove the heart of one victim, and cut off the limbs of another with a machete — “heavily” weighed in favor of transferring him to adult court.

Bredar’s ruling Thursday reaffirmed an earlier ruling he made in the case, which had been appealed by new attorneys for the defendant, Jose Joya Parada.

Parada was indicted as an adult in the 30-defendant case last month.

Parada “was not merely a conspirator,” Bredar wrote in the first opinion. “In fact, he was allegedly so involved that his conduct earned him the nickname ‘Little Jason’ within the Fulton clique [of MS-13] — an apparent reference to the violent antagonist in a horror franchise.”

Attorneys Chad Curlett and Lauren McLarney had asked Bredar to reconsider, saying studies and higher court rulings have affirmed that youth accused of crimes must be looked at differently.

“The Supreme Court’s view on the science about juvenile culpability cannot be ignored,” the defense attorneys wrote.

“The science suggests that J.J.P.’s actions do not illustrate an irrevocable depravity but a predictable tendency to follow his peers and submit to their destructive pressure.”

The federal government’s case against the MS-13 clique contains widespread accusations of violence, including killings in Anne Arundel, Frederick, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.

The first murder took place when a few weeks before Parada’s 16th birthday, on March 31, 2017, when a man was stabbed more than 100 times in Wheaton.

He and others allegedly dismembered the victim, removed his heart and buried him in a grave.

Four days later, prosecutors say, Parada took part in a second murder in Frederick in which the victim struck with a machete and buried. They say the victim’s legs were cut off in order to make him fit.

He’s accused of additional assaults that took place in Wheaton that June.

“While we respect Chief Judge Bredar, we believe the law supports our position that a boy who was 15 years old when the crimes were committed should not be prosecuted as an adult in federal court,” Curlett said Thursday.

There is no separate juvenile court in the federal system. Minors accused of “acts of juvenile delinquency” are charged under seal, and can be waived up to adult court.

The trial was scheduled to begin on June 1, but has been pushed back due to coronavirus concerns.

Prosecutors cited DC sniper Lee Boyd Malvo as one example of a youth being charged as an adult in the federal system. Marcia Murphy, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, said such cases “are not common.”

Bredar weighed various factors in his ruling. Parada’s father was killed in gang violence in El Salvador, and he crossed into the United States alone as an unaccompanied minor. His mother said he was deeply impacted by the murder of his father and the death of his grandfathers.

He “initially performed well academically after arriving in America, and in the ninth grade received As and Bs in his classes,” Bredar noted. But he was expelled from his Montgomery County high school.

Bredar said his background and his young age weighed against transferring the case for an adult prosecution.

But he said the violent assaults and racketeering activity weighed heavily in favor of the transfer.

In their appeal, Curlett and McLarney said, “The science shows that a juvenile is too underdeveloped and susceptible to peer influence to display irrevocable depravity, and the Supreme Court has established that a juvenile is, by definition, ‘less culpable’ than an adult who commits the same conduct.”

The attorneys said their client was under “enormous influence” from “several older, armed gang members” and was hard-pressed to refuse the task.