Melvi Amador Ríos was found guilty today of ordering the murder of a 16-year-old teenager and overseeing several other violent crimes as a leader of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang criminal organization in New York.
After a two-week trial in the Brooklyn Federal Courta jury found Melvi Amador Ríos guilty of 17 of the 18 charges he faced, including homicide in aid of organized crime, which entails a mandatory life sentencestressed Daily News.
Prosecutors accused the 32-year-old Hispanic of heading the “Centrales Locos Salvatruchas” (CLS) clique, which it operated primarily from Jamaica, Queens. In that role he led a group of “checkups” on teenagers, sending them on kill missions so they could rise within the gang, the feds argued.
His brother Santos Amador Ríos and four other cooperating witnesses testified against him. during the trial, linking him to the murder of Julio “Bad Boy” Vásquez (16) in May 2017, and the previous near-fatal shooting of Luis Serrano (16) in October 2016.
Santos, a 33-year-old Honduran and also a former CLS member, said at his brother’s trial that he wanted to change his life and “leave all the bad behind.” “It’s not that I want to do what I’m doing right now, but I can’t rot in jail. he knows and I know I love him very much, but there is nothing I can do.”he claimed in his testimony at the end of July.
While already in prison, in September 2019 Amador Ríos, Josué Leiva and Luis Rivas pleaded “not guilty” for the death of Vásquez.
He Vasquez’s brutal murder it happened in 2017 at Queens’ Alley Pond Park. The other victim Louis Serrano, he was shot in the face and left paralyzed. Amador Ríos also planned four armed robberies at Queens businesses, prosecutors claimed.
Assistant District Attorney Raffaela Belizaire said every murder committed by the MS-13 “cab” in Queens went through the Amador Ríos warrant, who as leader he was responsible for enforcing gang ruleswhich included killing rivals and “traitorous” members whenever possible, and never talking to the police.
Murray Singer, defense attorney for Melvi Amador Ríos, launched an unusual argument to the jury in the trial that began on July 24. He admitted that the defendant is a gang member, but said that would not be enough to convict him. “It is not a crime to be affiliated with MS-13… Being a member of MS-13 is not a crime”he claimed.
The jury heard from another cooperating witness, José González Rivera, who explained how Amador Ríos and others they beat him up when he joined the gang, and said the leader put him to work selling marijuana. When asked about the consequences he would face for cooperating with the government, he sadly replied: “Certain death.”
Long Island and Queens are two of the areas with the highest presence of Mara Salvatrucha in the USA, where they are attributed dozens of murders and disappearances. The Central American origin group is associated with recruit young men and women, mostly of Latino origin.
2023-08-09 16:34:00
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