The father of a 15-year-old girl from New York who was killed in a brutal The 2016 MS-13 attack speaks against a plea deal for the gang leader who orchestrated her murder and six others that federal prosecutors secured just days before President Biden leaves office.
“He or anyone involved in killing a person should not have to plead,” Mickens’ father, Robert Mickens, told Fox News on Friday. “It’s another big mistake that our current President Biden has made, but I’m not shocked. It’s a slap in the face to my family and the families of others, who have to live with the grief of the rest of their lives knowing that this is a demonic person getting a plea deal.”
One of his daughter’s suspected killers, 28-year-old Jairo Saenz, got a last-minute deal that spares him both the death penalty and life in prison under orders from outgoing Biden attorney general Merrick Garland.
Days later, additional gang members were given similar jobs in another racketeering case involving nine murder victims.
LAME DUCK BIDEN’S DOJ Pleads Guilty To Brutal SWEETHEART GANG LEADER IN MURDER THAT KILLED 7
Nisa and Robert Mickens pose in an undated family photo. At the age of 15, Nisa was killed by members of the MS-13 gang in a brutal attack with machetes and baseball bats. Her father spoke out against a plea deal for the suspected gang leader who confessed to killing her and six other people but avoided both the death penalty and life in prison. (Submitted by Robert Mickens)
It’s a slap in the face to my family and the families of others, who have to live with grief for the rest of their lives knowing that this demonic person got a plea deal.
Saenz is expected to get 40 to 60 years behind bars. His brother, Alexi, pleaded guilty separately to eight murders in exchange for a 70-year prison sentence. Federal prosecutors in New York on Friday announced similar plea deals for three other Long Island MS-13 leaders in nine murders — none of which carry life in prison or the death penalty.
Saenz’s chapter from MS-13, known as “Sailors”, he was notoriously violent.
This undated photo released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, shows who authorities identify as Jair Saenz in New York. (U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York via AP)
Other killers include Kevin Torres, who like the Saenz brothers was a leader in the Sailors’ sub-group, as well as David Sosa-Guevara and Victor Lopez-Morales, who were both involved in the prosecution’s chapter called “Hollywood.”
The Saenz brothers would face the death penalty under Trump’s Justice Department during his first term.
The death penalty was never approved in the other three cases, however, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York said Friday.
Illegal immigration and rampant MS-13 violence helped drive the shift a suburb of Long Island according to the Republicans in the last election, according to some experts and people who live there.
Nisa was a student at Brentwood High School, in Suffolk County, about 45 miles east of New York. Members of the MS-13 gang, led by co-leader Jair Saenz, ambushed her and her best friend, 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas, with machetes and baseball bats as they walked through the neighborhood. The gang brutally killed them and left their bodies to be found.
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with Elizabeth Alvarado, along with Robert Mickens, whose daughter was killed by MS-13 gang members, during a roundtable discussion on immigration at the Morrelly Homeland Security Center in Bethpage, New York, May 23, 2018. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
The sailors would regularly drive around looking for rivals to kill, then lure or ambush them, federal prosecutors allege.
The carnage became so heavy on Long Island that during President Trump In his first term, he made personal visits to meet with the families of Cuevas, Mickens and other victims and enlisted then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an effort to get the gang off the streets, which he said used immigration “loopholes” to bring members to the U.S.
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. Trump invited the parents of Mickens and Ceuvas to attend the State of the Nation address.
In 2023, then-U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace told a judge that Garland referred him 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.
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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.
“I’m pretty confident that our President Trump will look into this and make the right decision,” Mickens said Friday. “Democrats didn’t care when my daughter passed away. They showed no respect in 2018 at the State of the Union, they didn’t stand up to honor us, and now they’re not giving us the families the respect we deserved to give him a plea deal.”
