MS-13 leader pleads guilty in case involving 8 murders, including the deaths of 2 girls on Long Island

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — The leader of an MS-13 gang clique in New York pleaded guilty Wednesday to criminal conspiracy in a case involving eight murders, including the 2016 killings of two high school students who were hacked and beaten as they strolled through their leafy suburban neighborhood on Long Island.

Alexi Saenz, 29, said little as he confessed in federal court in Central Islip. His lawyer read a statement in which Saenz admitted ordering or approving the killings of perceived rivals and people who had disrespected or been in conflict with members of his clique.

The victims included Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens15, lifelong friends and classmates at Brentwood High School who were killed with a machete and a baseball bat by a group of young men and teenagers who had been chasing them in a car.

The deaths of the high school students drew the nation’s attention to the violence of the MS-13 gang during President Donald Trump’s administration.

The Republican had demanded the death penalty for Saenz and others arrested in connection with the murders, and during several visits to Long Island blamed lax immigration policies for the violence and growth of gangs. Cuevas’ mother, Evelyn Rodriguez, was a guest at Trump’s 2018 State of the Union address.

The girls’ deaths also raised questions about whether Long Island police had been aggressive enough to address the then-serious threat posed by the emergence of gangs in the area’s high schools.

In 2016, Hispanic children and young men were had quietly disappeared in Brentwooda working-class community 40 miles east of New York City. After Kayla and Nisa were killed, police in Brentwood discovered the bodies of three other young people, ages 15, 18 and 19, who had disappeared months earlier.

Saenz said he was not present when Kayla and Nisa were killed, but had spoken to other gang members on the phone beforehand about the attack.

Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, whose office prosecuted the case, said Wednesday that Saenz’s hands were “soaked in blood.”

As part of his guilty plea, Saenz admitted to being involved in six additional murders and three attempted murders.

Among his victims was 15-year-old Javier Castillo of Central Islip, who was befriended by members of the gang, driven 30 miles (48 kilometers) to Freeport and then fatally attacked with a machete in a remote swamp area. His buried body was discovered a year later, in 2017.

Another victim, 19-year-old Oscar Acosta, was found dead in a wooded area near some railroad tracks a few days after Kayla and Nisa’s deaths. He had disappeared nearly five months earlier when he left his Brentwood home to play soccer.

Older victims included 29-year-old Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, who was killed by a gunman at a Central Islip deli in early 2017; 34-year-old Dewann Stacks, who was ambushed and beaten to death as he walked down a street in Brentwood near a wooded area sometimes used as a gang hangout; 27-year-old Marcus Bohannon, who was shot in 2016; and Michael Johnson, who was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in Brentwood in 2016.

The prosecution had previously withdrawn its intention to seek the death penalty in this case. Saenz faces 40 to 70 years in prison if convicted.

Saenz’s lawyers and supporters declined to comment after the hearing.

Kayla’s father, Freddy Cuevas, said outside court that he was disappointed that the death penalty was off the table.

“He’s an animal. He’s inhumane,” Freddy Cuevas said of Saenz. “Hopefully justice will be served soon and we can put this all behind us as far as the families are concerned.”

Nisa’s mother, Elizabeth Alvarado, expressed relief that she and the other victims’ families would not have to go through the trauma of a trial.

“I just want my daughter to find peace,” she said through tears, wearing a black T-shirt with her daughter’s name on the back. “The longer we’re gone, the less peace she’ll find. At the end of the day, she’ll be happy because it’ll all be over.”

In the raids that followed the killings, police and federal agents arrested dozens of suspected MS-13 members. or Mara Salvatruchaa transnational criminal organization that is believed to have been founded in the mid-1980s as a street gang in a Los Angeles neighborhood by people fleeing the civil war in El Salvador.

Kayla Cuevas’ mother Rodriguez became an anti-gang activist after her daughter’s death, but was killed herself in 2018. Rodriguez was fatally struck by a car during a dispute over a memorial marking the second anniversary of her daughter’s death. The driver, Annmarie Drago, pleaded guilty in 2024 to negligent homicide.

Prosecutors said Saenz, also known as “Blasty” and “Big Homie,” was the leader of an MS-13 clique active in Brentwood and Central Islip known as the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside. Charges are pending against his brother, Jairo Saenz, who prosecutors said was the second man in the local gang.

Alexi Saenz also admitted to arson, weapons offenses and drug trafficking. The proceeds from this trafficking went to buy weapons, more drugs and for donations to the larger gang MS-13.

His sentencing was scheduled for January 31.

George Johnson, the father of victim Michael Johnson, said he saw no remorse or emotion from Saenz in court.

“He was supposed to die there,” Johnson said, referring to Saenz, who has been in federal custody since his arrest in 2017. “It seemed like something he just wanted to get over with.”

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Follow Philip Marcelo on twitter.com/philmarcelo.