By Forum Staff
Three members of the violent street gang La Mara Salvatrucha have received lengthy prison sentences for their roles in the murder of a fellow MS-13 member four years ago, Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue announced on Thursday.
Milton Contreras, 22, was sentenced to 27 years’ imprisonment, while Oscar Welman Espinoza-Merino, 35, and Jose Osmin Rubio, 30, each were sentenced to more than 24 years behind bars for the calculated slaying of Sidney Valverde, 19, in Suffolk County in 2014.
And after serving their sentences, all three defendants will face deportation from the United States, Donoghue noted.
According to court documents, on Feb. 25, 2014, Contreras, Espinoza-Merino, Rubio, and a fourth assailant, Byron Lopez, 26, of Jamaica, who has not yet been sentenced, directed Valverde to travel to Long Island from his home in Jamaica under the false pretense that they needed him to assist in gang business there. In fact, the co-conspirators planned to kill Valverde because they believed that he was providing information about the gang’s activities to law enforcement.
After Valverde arrived in Long Island, the four killers shot him in the back of the head and left his body on Miller Place Beach where it was discovered by a beachcomber approximately two weeks later.
“It is not a secret that MS-13 gang members are violent for the sake of being violent, and in this particular case exhibited their murderous ways by executing a teenager in Long Island,” said Angel Melendez, Special-Agent-in-Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security Investigations New York. “As they use violence to seek power through instilling fear into the neighborhoods in which they live, we will be relentless working with our partners to dismantle this vicious gang and bring peace back to the communities.”
Donoghue noted on Thursday that since 2010 alone, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York has obtained indictments charging MS-13 members with carrying out more than 40 murders in Queens, Brooklyn, and on Long Island; and has convicted dozens of MS-13 leaders and members in connection with those homicides.
