20 from MS-13 busted in slay, other charges

AFTER MS-13 GANG members fatally beat and sliced four young men in a Long Island park three months ago, Brooklyn federal prosecutors say they’ve got the men who carried out the vicious murders.

Authorities laid out the chilling new details of the quadruple homicide Wednesday as they announced a new, larger version of a 2016 indictment targeting MS-13's criminal activity in Long Island.

The savage April murders started with the four young men and a fifth who survived being lured to a park by two female MS-13 associates.

Thinking the victims were members of a rival gang, more than a dozen gang members and hangers-on “met in a heavily wooded area behind the park where they discussed the plan to kill the victims, distributed weapons and waited for word from the females that they had arrived,” court documents show.

MS-13 gang members surrounded and attacked the victims using machetes, knives and wooden clubs.

In all, 20 members and associates of MS-13 were charged with racketeering, 12 murders, attempted murders, assaults, obstruction of justice, arson, conspiracy to distribute marijuana, and related firearms and conspiracy charges tied to the gang's activities on Long Island. Prosecutors could seek the death penalty.

At a press conference Wednesday, officials said seven of the eight new defendants were in the country illegally. Alexis Hernandez, 20, Santos Leonel Ortiz-Flores, 19, and Omar Antonio Villalta, 22, — who also goes by the name “Anticristo” — were each charged with the April 11 murders of Justin Llivicura, Michael Banegas, Jorge Tigre and Jefferson Villalobos, according to court papers.

Mario Aguilar-Lopez, 18, Enrique Portillo, 20, Alexi Saenz, 22, Jairo Saenz, 20, and Jose Suarez, 23, were charged in connection with the Jan. 20 murder of Esteban AlvaradoBonilla, a suspected rival gang member, and the wounding of an innocent bystander at El Campesino Deli in Central Islip.

Portillo, Alexi Saenz and Jairo Saenz already face charges for the September 2016 murders of two Brentwood High School students.