MS-13 associate found guilty in deaths of 4 young men in Central Islip

A jury on Monday convicted the female MS-13 gang associate known as "Little Devil" in the Central Islip hacking deaths of four young men on the fifth anniversary of a crime that shocked Long Islanders.

The verdict in the trial of Leniz Escobar, 22, followed less than four hours of deliberations in the federal courthouse a couple of miles from the park where police recovered the victims' mutilated bodies in woods by a soccer field.

Prosecutors said Escobar was both the “bait” that lured in the victims and a “mastermind” who helped plot the quadruple slaying. Police described the crime as one of the most gruesome murders in Suffolk County’s history.

Those who died in the harrowing attack on April 11, 2017, were: Jorge Tigre, 18, of Bellport; Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue; Michael Lopez, 20, of Brentwood; and Lopez’s cousin, Jefferson Villalobos, 18, of Pompano Beach, Florida.

Their families weren't in court Monday, but silk flowers, a cross and other remnants of a memorial to their lives were still clinging to a fence in Central Islip Community Park.

Tigre was an honor student at Bellport High School who wanted to be a police officer. Llivicura, his schoolmate, was a jokester who loved music and his dog, Bruno. Lopez was a happy-go-lucky kid who loved to play soccer. Villalobos shared his cousin's sporting passion and had come to New York with his sister, father and grandmother for a visit with family.

Eastern District U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement after Monday's verdict that Escobar "showed utter disregard for human life by leading the victims into a killing field, to their slaughter, to enhance her stature with her fellow coldblooded murderers within the MS-13 gang."

He added that Escobar "has been held responsible for the crucial role that she willingly played in orchestrating one of the most vicious and senseless mass murders in the district in memory."

Escobar returned a fist bump from one of her attorneys, Jesse Siegel, minutes before the verdict was read. She didn't outwardly react when she heard her fate, and looked straight ahead as U.S. Circuit Judge Joseph Bianco then read the verdict back.

Siegel later described his client's reaction as "stoic," saying the defense was disappointed by the outcome but would start to prepare for Escobar's Sept. 14 sentencing.

"There's a lot of work to be done so that when it's time to sentence Leniz, Judge Bianco has a good idea of who she is," the Manhattan attorney said outside the courthouse. "People should not be defined solely by the worst thing they ever do. And Leniz is a 22-year-old young woman who's had an extraordinarily difficult life."

Testimony showed a posse of MS-13 gang members emerged from the woods as Escobar and a female co-conspirator smoked marijuana with the four victims and the sole survivor of the onslaught, Elmer Alexander Artiaga-Ruiz, by a fallen tree in the light of the full moon.

The machete-wielding gang ordered Artiaga-Ruiz and his friends to their knees while telling them MS-13 should be respected before unleashing the deadly violence, according to other trial testimony.

Artiaga-Ruiz, now 22 and formerly of Ronkonkoma, told jurors he bolted as one of the attackers shouted “hack him.” He escaped by vaulting a fence and a stone wall and later led police to the victims’ remains.

Escobar’s female co-conspirator, Keyli Gomez, now 21, testified as a cooperating government witness that the two of them set up the victims for execution. Gomez also told jurors that one of the victims reached out to Escobar as he was bleeding on the ground, apologizing and touching Escobar’s arm, before her only response was to smile.

Prosecutors said Escobar, then 17, and Gomez, then 16, brought the young men to the woods to smoke marijuana after meeting with MS-13 members about a week earlier and showing them photos of Artiaga-Ruiz flashing gang signs.

MS-13 had believed based on social media posts that Artiaga-Ruiz and his friends were either members of the rival 18th Street gang or had shown disrespect toward MS-13 and so targeted them for death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said during the trial.

Artiaga-Ruiz also testified he hadn’t been in a gang but had posed making gang signs because he thought it would “draw the attention of women.”

The slayings exposed the raw brutality of the transnational criminal enterprise with ties to El Salvador, with testimony showing the victims suffered “blunt force sharp trauma” that left two with exposed jaw bones. All four had defensive wounds to their hands.

One of the young men had nine injuries to his scalp, along with skull fractures and brain contusions, according to autopsy results. Another was hit at least five times in the head, breaking part of his skull into small pieces, a now-retired Suffolk medical examiner also testified.

Escobar told police in the aftermath of the killings that she fell victim to a robbery at the hands of strangers who took her Michael Kors handbag with $90 inside, before she and Gomez took off running while hearing sounds of the attack unfold.

But recordings of phone conversations Escobar had a day later with her jailed boyfriend, a higher-up in a different MS-13 branch, became powerful evidence against her in court.

She told him “four individuals took the train,” were “never coming back” and were “seeing the light.” But another “still managed to be here on the map,” Escobar said, adding that the same person “spilled the beans with the cops.”

The high school student also told her boyfriend she was “happy for this to happen,” words the prosecution said showed Escobar “was not forced to do what she did.”

In his opening statement, attorney Keith White, who also represented Escobar, portrayed the calls as “pivots” from a teenager “who knew she was in danger.” Much of what Escobar said on the calls wasn’t true, but instead were a show of strength from a terrified witness to four slayings who feared MS-13 would target her because of what she had seen, her lawyers also contended.

They said she didn’t know anyone would be killed that night. The defense also argued Escobar wasn’t a gang associate, telling jurors she got protection from MS-13 because of her boyfriend’s role in the gang.

But prosecutor Paul Scotti told jurors during closing arguments that Escobar, whose street name in Spanish is "La Diablita," was just as committed to MS-13 "as any jumped-in homeboy."

Siegel acknowledged in the defense's closing argument that Escobar was at the scene of the carnage. But he contended prosecutors didn’t make their case because they didn’t prove she intentionally killed the victims to maintain or increase her position in MS-13 — an element of the four counts of murder in aid of racketeering against her.

Jurors convicted her of those charges, along with a separate racketeering charge that was part of her five-count indictment.

The defense also had tried to discredit the government’s cooperating witnesses, suggesting they were liars who would say anything to try to get leniency in sentencing after pleading guilty to MS-13 crimes.

One of the attackers, prosecution witness Sergio Segovia-Pineda, 23, told jurors he used a chisel and a machete on the victims as they screamed and later burned one of their shoes to destroy potential evidence. He said 14 MS-13 gang members or associates took part in either the planning of the killings or the attack and described how one brought a backpack brimming with knives, blades and machetes to the scene.

Segovia-Pineda also recalled hacking all four victims with a black-handled machete that was about two feet long. He testified that Escobar was “just watching” the violence with Gomez and didn’t try to run.

Government cooperator David Gaitan-Rivera, 23, an MS-13 member who pleaded guilty to two other killings, testified he spoke to Escobar after the slayings and she told him blood from one of the victims had splattered on her before “she licked it” off her lips.

Jurors spent just 16 minutes deliberating Monday. They had sent Bianco a note Thursday before court recessed for the weekend saying they were "substantially in agreement," but some panelists wanted "the chance to sleep on it."

Escobar, who smiled and waved to a handful of supporters as law enforcement officials led her out of court Monday, is now facing a possible sentence of life in prison.