A high-ranking MS-13 gang member pleaded guilty Wednesday to his involvement in eight brutal murders in New York, including the killings of two high school girls who were beaten with bats and hacked with a machete in 2016. The slain high-school pals, Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, were honored along with their parents by former President Trump in his 2018 State of the Union speech, during which he called for stricter border controls.
Saenz also admitted to his role in three other attempted murders and to arson, firearms offenses, and drug trafficking – the proceeds of which went toward buying firearms, more drugs and providing contributions to the wider MS-13 gang. He faces 40 to 70 years in prison when he is sentenced, with prosecutors previously withdrawing their intent to seek the death penalty in the case.
In the months leading up to the murders, Cuevas was involved in a series of disputes with members and associates of MS-13 – a violent gang started by Central American immigrants, mainly from El Salvador, in Los Angeles in the 1980s, but has since expanded with devastating results. Saenz, also known as 'Blasty' and 'Big Homie,' was the leader of an MS-13 group operating in Brentwood and Central Islip known as Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside.
Older victims included Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, 29, who was killed by a gunman inside a Central Islip deli in early 2017; Dewann Stacks, 34, who was ambushed and beaten to death as he walked along a road in Brentwood near a wooded area that was sometimes used as a gang meeting spot; Marcus Bohannon, 27, who was shot in 2016; and Michael Johnson, who was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in Brentwood in 2016. Saenz's crew suspected that all of the victims were part of rival gangs.