The infamous MS-13 gang leader who admitted to planning, authorizing or participating in the least seven murders avoided the death penalty and life in prison in a federal racketeering case under the terms of a plea deal, authorities said this week.
Jairo Saenz, 28, is expected to receive 40 to 60 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to seven murders, multiple attempted murders, arson and other charges. Saenz’s brother Alexi, another gang leader, previously pleaded guilty to similar charges in exchange for an expected sentence of 70 years behind bars.
The Saenz brothers were the leaders of the Suffolk County, New York branch of MS-13 known as the Mariners, according to federal authorities. Their group was known for extreme brutality and violence, including the murder of two Brentwood High School girls with a machete and a baseball bat.
Kayla Cuevas (16) and her friend Nisa Mickens (15) were killed by MS-13 members in Brentwood, New York in September 2016. (AP)
They attacked Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, after members saw them walking in the neighborhood on Sept. 13, 2016. One of the girls criticized the Sailors on Facebook. The gang killed them both and left their bodies to be found later.
Suffolk County police have offered a $15,000 reward for information on the case. Federal prosecutors and Immigration and Customs Enforcement later joined a nationwide crackdown on MS-13 during President Trump’s first term.
When you look at how barbaric these crimes were, killing children with machetes, baseball bats, this is a clear case for the death penalty.
“It’s shameful. It’s an insult to families,” Suffolk County president of the PBA Lou Civello said of the plea agreement Wednesday. “When you look at how barbaric these crimes were, killing little children with machetes, with baseball bats, this is a clear case for the death penalty.”
If Saenz serves the lower limit of his sentence, it amounts to less than six years per murder, Civello told Fox News Digital.
“We’re always grateful for the federal partnership and the resources they bring to the table, but at the same time we need justice, that’s the important part,” he said. “If this was true justice, this person should never see the light of day again. There should never be another opportunity for him to be out and on our streets again.”
ALLEGATIONS IN DEATH OF ANTI-GANG CRUSADER WHO LOST DAUGHTER
Alexi Saenz, left, and Jairo Saenz, in booking photos taken after their arrest. The brothers admitted to being MS-13 leaders and killers in a federal racketeering case. (U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York)
“The Saenz brothers were no longer facing the possibility of the death penalty,” a spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office told Fox News Digital. “In 2023, the US Attorney General directed our office not to seek sentencing if convicted on the counts.”
During a preliminary hearing, Saenz, his brother and another gang member joked and laughed in court as the girls’ families were forced to watch from the gallery, Fox News Digital reported in 2018
WATCH: MS-13 members show no remorse for killings
“For too long, MS-13 has been doing its own version of the death penalty,” said then-U.S. Attorney Robert Capers of the Eastern District of New York at the time of their arrests.
Now his predecessors have taken death off the table for the ringleader – and the outgoing one President Biden he also commuted the death sentences of 37 of the 40 federal inmates on death row.
The gang would often drive around town looking for rivals to kill, according to federal prosecutors, sometimes in broad daylight and often luring or ambushing their victims. But it was not clear how many of the people they attacked were actually connected to the gang.
A memorial to best friends Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas in Brentwood, New York on September 27, 2016, near where their bodies were found. (AP Photo/Claudia Torrens, File)
In one incident, Saenz helped organize the murder of a man whose soccer jersey was taken as a symbol of another gang. A masked gunman snuck up behind Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, 29, as he stood in line at a deli on Jan. 30, 2017. He was shot in the back of the head, and the bullet exited and wounded a woman behind the counter.
MS-13 violence it got so bad on Long Island that during President Trump’s first term he personally visited it to meet with the families of Cuevas, Mickens and other victims and enlisted then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to try to get the gang off the streets, which he said uses immigration “loopholes” to bring members to the US
TRUMP SHOWS MOM AFTER MS-13 KILLED HER DAUGHTER HIT, KILLED BY FIELD NEAR MEMORIAL SITE
MS-13 gang member Alexi Saenz is escorted by FBI agents to Central Islip, New York, after being taken into custody. (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, File)
During the meeting, he described MS-13 as “a ruthless gang that has breached our borders and turned once peaceful neighborhoods into bloody fields of death.”
The federal crackdown at the time led to the deportation of thousands of its members. Saenz and his group were kept under control face justiceand former Attorney General Bill Barr’s office would later announce that he was seeking the death penalty.
Cuevas’ mother, Evelyn Rodriguez, became a fierce anti-gang activist, but died before she ever saw justice. She was run over near the monument to her daughter in 2018. The driver was convicted of manslaughter.
President Trump speaks alongside Evelyn Rodriguez, whose daughter was killed by MS-13 gang members, during a debate on immigration at the Morrelly Center for Homeland Security in Bethpage, New York, on May 23, 2018. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2023, then-U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace told a judge that Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, referred him to stop chasing capital punishment. Peace resigned Friday and was succeeded by Acting U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny, who is expected to serve until Joseph Nocella Jr. is confirmed. nominated by Trump.
Trump promised not only to end Biden’s moratorium on the death penalty, but also to expand the list of crimes punishable by death to include child rape, human trafficking, and the murders of American citizens by illegal immigrants. Thirteen federal prisoners were executed during Trump’s first term, the most under any president in decades, but Biden halted the executions after taking office in 2021.
Experts told Fox News Digital that the deal was easy, but could have taken shape for a number of reasons, such as if Saenz agreed to cooperate against his co-conspirators. Avoiding a trial also uses fewer state resources and spares victims’ families from reliving the horrors of court—or watching the killers continue to smile and joke.
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice on September 24, 2024 in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
However, prosecutors could seek a harsher sentence without seeking the death penalty.
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“This is a very lenient sentence, given the circumstances of this case,” said David Gelman, a New Jersey defense attorney and former prosecutor.
“The only plea deal I would offer is life in prison without the possibility of parole. Here these gang members will not only get a chance to get out while they’re still alive, but they’ll likely get out earlier than their expected sentence.”
Civello also highlighted a new threat from Venezuela’s prison gang, the Tren de Aragua, but said he hopes the new leadership will increase public safety across the country after Trump is inaugurated on Monday.
