MS-13 member gets a 30-year sentence
Another member of the violent trans-national MS-13 gang’s central Ohio operations is headed to federal prison.
Jose Daniel Gonzalez-campos, 32, of Falls Church, Virginia, was sentenced Wednesday afternoon to 30 years in prison. He admitted to helping in the brutal murder of a Columbus teen as part of a guilty plea in August to a single felony count of conspiracy to commit racketeering.
U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. announced the sentence, accepting a duration in line with a plea agreement with prosecutors. However, Sargus pointed out the defendant could have faced life without parole, or potentially the death penalty, with other felony counts he had faced.
For his part, Gonzalez-campos – known by the alias “Flaco” – admitted to participating in MS-13 crimes, including the gruesome 2015 killing of 17year-old high school student Wilson Villeda.
According to court documents, gang members took Villeda to Innis Park on the Northeast Side, where they attacked him “with a machete and other bladed weapons,” according to documents.
His mutilated body was buried in a shallow grave.
Gonzalez-campos appeared Wednesday before Judge Sargus via video conferencing because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. An interpreter assisted during his sentencing hearing.
He was the latest to face sentencing among more than 20 people indicted as part of the investigation that federal prosecutors say led to a breakup of MS-13’S Columbus area gang. The years-long crackdown involved the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the FBI, immigration officials, local law enforcement and others.
Most of those charged have pleaded guilty, with many already sentenced to lengthy prison terms for committing “multiple acts of murder, extortion, drug trafficking, money laundering, obstruction of justice and/or witness tampering,” according to court documents. mkovac@dispatch.com @Ohiocapitalblog