International Courant
The Justice Division will not search the demise penalty for 2 alleged MS-13 gang members accused of brutally killing a number of youngsters in Lengthy Island, New York.
In a letter to a federal decide, Breon Peace, the U.S. legal professional for the Japanese District of New York, mentioned Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland directed prosecutors to withdraw notices of intention to hunt the demise penalty in opposition to brothers, Alexi Saenz and Jairo Saenz.
“We write on behalf of the Authorities within the above-captioned matter, to offer an replace to the Courtroom with respect to the standing of the demise penalty deauthorization requests of defendants Alexi Saenz and Jairo Saenz, and the Division of Justice’s determination whether or not to hunt the demise penalty in opposition to Alexi Saenz for an eighth homicide,” Peace wrote in a letter to U.S. District Decide Gary R. Brown.
CHARGES IN DEATH OF ANTI-GANG CRUSADER WHO LOST HER DAUGHTER
Alexi Saenz, left, and Jairo Saenz, each alleged MS-13 gang members, are scheduled to go on trial for his or her alleged roles in a number of killings in Lengthy Island, N.Y. (File)
Brown is anticipated to supervise the brothers’ trial when it begins March 4. The federal government initially supposed to hunt the demise penalty for each males in 2020 for his or her alleged roles within the 2016 killings of 16-year-old Kayla Cuevas, and 15-year-old Nisa Mickens.
The killings drew nationwide consideration and introduced MS-13 (Mara Salvatrucha 13) into the nationwide highlight in July 2017. Then-President Trump visited the Lengthy Island suburb of Brentwood and vowed to eradicate MS-13, a transnational felony gang with its origins in Los Angeles.
The brothers are additionally charged within the deaths of Michael Johnson, Oscar Acosta, Javier Castillo, Dewann Stacks and Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla.
Alexi Saenz, 28, was additionally charged with capital offenses referring to an eighth homicide sufferer, Marcus Bohannon. Peace mentioned he has requested the Justice Division to decide concerning the demise penalty within the Bohannon case by Nov. 29.
“It’s fantastic information and we’re relieved for our purchasers,” Jacqueline Ok. Walsh of Seattle, considered one of Jairo Saenz’s legal professionals, advised Newsday in regards to the DOJ’s intentions.
MOM HONORED BY TRUMP AFTER MS-13 KILLED HER DAUGHTER IS STRUCK, KILLED BY SUV NEAR MEMORIAL SITE
Buddies Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, had been killed by MS-13 members in Brentwood, N.Y., in September 2016. The Justice Division has acknowledged it would not search the demise penalty for the 2 MS-13 gang members allegedly chargeable for the killings. (AP Photograph/File)
Fox Information Digital unsuccessfully tried reaching out to Walsh. The DOJ didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Alexi Saenz was the chief of MS-13’s Brentwood and Central Islip-based MS-13 clique. Jairo Saenz, 27, was his second-in-command, federal prosecutors have mentioned.
Cuevas and Mickens had been slaughtered in a residential neighborhood close to an elementary faculty on Sept. 13, 2016 — the day earlier than Mickens’ sixteenth birthday. Her physique was discovered on a tree-lined avenue in Brentwood, whereas Cuevas’ overwhelmed physique turned up within the wooded yard of a close-by dwelling a day later.
The 2 teenagers had been lifelong associates who had been inseparable and shared an curiosity in basketball, family and friends mentioned. The Saenz brothers killed Cuevas as a result of she referred to as out the gang in school and on social media, prosecutors have mentioned.
Officers mentioned Mickens was within the incorrect place on the incorrect time.
The DOJ halted federal executions in 2021, with 13 being performed in the course of the last months of the Trump administration in 2020.
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Cuevas’ mom, Evelyn Rodriguez, turned an anti-gang activist and was later killed throughout a dispute over a memorial honoring her daughter. Annmarie Drago, who’s accused of fatally operating over Rodriguez in 2018, is being tried for a second time after jurors failed to succeed in a verdict on the highest depend of criminally negligent murder.
