Ever Flores sentenced to more than 26 years in MS-13 machete killing of Dewann Stacks in 2016

An MS-13 member who admitted participating in the 2016 killing of a man on a residential street in Brentwood was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison on Thursday in federal court in Central Islip.

Ever Flores, 30, told U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown he was sorry for the pain he caused to the relatives of victim Dewann Stacks, as well as his own family. He said he had been traumatized by the violence he witnessed in his native El Salvador and was abusing drugs and alcohol when he attacked Stacks with a machete.

Flores’ attorney Susan Marcus told Brown the defendant was naive when he moved to the United States and joined the gang notorious for attacking victims with machetes and baseball bats.

"I am not happy with what I did," Flores told Brown, who sentenced the defendant to 322 months in prison.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Scotti said Flores displayed bloodthirstiness, not naivete, when he attacked Stacks with a machete on American Boulevard in what the prosecutor called "a frenzy of violence." Scotti said Flores and other gang members beat Stacks with such force to the face and head that he was nearly unrecognizable.

"They did not just kill him," Scotti said. "They did it in the most brutalizing, horrifying way you can imagine."

Flores pleaded guilty to racketeering on Oct. 21, 2021. His sentencing was delayed for three years after Marcus requested several adjournments, saying in court documents that she had been unable to meet with Flores at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn because of COVID-19 lockdowns and other issues.

A source with knowledge of the case said Marcus asked for the adjournments to hire mitigation experts and a producer for a video featuring Flores’ teachers, principal, soccer coach and dance instructor speaking favorably about the defendant. Marcus, the source said, did not file sentencing materials until June.

Flores also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana, acknowledging that he and other members of MS-13’s Sailors clique conspired to sell drugs between April 2016 and October 2017 to raise money for the gang.

Marcus and members of Flores’ family declined to discuss the sentence after Thursday’s hearing.

Prosecutors said Flores and other MS-13 co-conspirators drove around Central Islip and Brentwood on Oct. 13, 2016, hunting for rival gang members to attack and kill. The gang spotted Stacks on American Boulevard. Believing that Stacks was a member of the rival Bloods, Flores attacked him with a machete. Two co-conspirators, one wielding a bat and the other a machete, beat and hacked Stacks to death, prosecutors said.

Scotti said Stacks was not a Bloods member. "He was just a man out for a walk," the prosecutor told Brown. Stacks’ family did not attend Thursday’s sentencing.

Flores also showed a taste for violence when he participated in the assault of two men — badly injuring one — at a taco restaurant in Brentwood two months after Stacks was killed, Scotti said. One of the men, prosecutors said, had disrespected MS-13.

Flores’ mother and other relatives wept throughout the sentencing, sobbing as they wiped away tears with tissues.

"I love you," he said in halting English, turning to his family. "Thank you for supporting me."

Marcus told the judge that Flores might have been named to the Salvadoran national soccer team if his family had not decided to move to the United States. Teachers and coaches spoke favorably about Flores, whom she described as a "childlike" young man, in the video the defense submitted to the court.

"He is more than the worst thing he has ever done," Marcus said.

Scotti, however, told Brown that Stacks’ murder and other violence committed by MS-13 rippled across Long Island, stoking fear in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

"This was one of the most horrific murders I have ever experienced as a prosecutor," Scotti said, "and that says a lot about MS-13."