THUGS AWAIT FATE
Jury gets case against 5 men in Junior machete slaying
A jury began deliberating Thursday in the murder trial of five suspects charged in the gruesome machete slaying of Bronx teen Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz.
Eleven women and one man are tasked with deciding the fate of Elvin Garcia, Antonio Rodriguez Hernandez Santiago, Manuel Rivera, Jose Muniz and Jonaiki Martinez Estrella, who face first-degree murder and other charges for the 2018 killing.
Judge Robert Neary told the jury they can deliberate over the five defendants separately and return individual verdicts.
On Tuesday, defense attorneys asked the judge to pull aside the jury’s foreperson — who has been spotted crying and staring at the defendants with “daggers” in her eyes, according to Rodriguez’s lawyer Amy Attias — to inquire whether she can evaluate the evidence in an impartial manner.
Neary declined the request. Junior 15, was attacked outside Cruz & Chiki deli at 183rd St. and Bathgate Ave. in the Belmont section of the Bronx on June 20, 2018. Police said the teen was killed in a case of mistaken identity.
The teen suffered numerous wounds. The fatal blow, according to a pathologist’s testimony, being a stab wound to his neck.
Early in their deliberations, jurors asked to view slow motion footage of the attack and hear testimony from cooperating witnesses Kevin Alvarez and Michael “Sosa” Reyes about what happened leading up to the slaying.
Reyes and Alvarez said reputed Los Sures leader Diego Suero ordered members of the Trinitarios subsets to attack their rivals, the Sunsets.
.Alvarez told jurors the directive was to “do whatever possible to hurt a Sunset member,” but not to kill anyone.
Reyes was less clear on the mission, claiming that Suero wanted them to do “any kind of damage.”
“If you have a gun, you shoot. If you have a knife, you stab. If you have a machete, you use a machete,” he testified.
Junior flashed the “patria” hand gesture, a Trinitarios sign and said “que lo siete,” a Sunset greeting, when first approached by the gang on Adams Place, according to Reyes.
The turncoat witnesses, including Alvarez, who dragged the helpless Junior from the deli — will stay out of jail in exchange for their testimony and Reyes will walk away with a clean record.
Lawyers for four out of the five suspects argued that their clients pretended to stab Junior because gang leaders were watching them from across the street.
The dead teen’s mother isn’t buying that defense.
“My son was 15 years old and 15 men attacked him together,” Leandra Feliz told the Daily News. “They (the jury) have to be focused on this.”
Jurors saw surveillance video of Estrella plunging what appears to be a bread knife through Junior’s neck in the final seconds of the attack.
To find the defendants guilty of the top charge of murder in the first degree — which carries a mandatory life sentence — jurors must determine that the men tortured Guzman-Feliz when they set upon him with knives and a machete outside the deli.
Deliberations are expected to resume Friday.