MELVILLE, N.Y. _ A member of the MS-13 street gang was sentenced Wednesday to 55 years in prison for his key role in the 2017 machete killings of four young men in a park on Long Island.
Josue Portillo was the first of about a dozen members of the gang and associates accused in the crime to plead guilty and to be sentenced in the case.
In sentencing Portillo, U.S. District Judge Joseph Bianco also ordered him to pay $24,000 in funeral expenses to be divided among three of the victims' families.
Portillo was 15 years old at the time of the slayings, but federal prosecutors successfully argued that because of his history of incorrigibility with authorities, school and family, and his central role in the murders, he should be treated as an adult, not as a juvenile.
The murders of the four young men shortly after the murders of two Brentwood High School girls _ Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens _ attributed to other MS-13 members set off a national furor with President Donald Trump and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowing to crush the gang.
Six of those arrested by the FBI's Long Island Gang Task Force for taking part in the four murders at the Central Islip park were originally identified as juveniles. But another then 15-year-old male and a then 17-year-old female gang associate also have been subsequently charged as adults because of their previous history and role in the killings.
Juveniles treated as adults in the federal system, however, cannot face a death penalty as can people who were adults at the time of their alleged crime.
Before Portillo was sentenced, according to court records, he wrote a letter to the judge, in Spanish which was translated into English, saying: "A(t) this point I can do nothing more than serve prison time and pray for Michael Lopez's family and the families of the other victims. I expect no leniency or mercy. I do not deserve any sympathy. I accept my punishment. My only hope is that I can be deported back to my native country El Salvador where I can try to start a new productive life as soon as possible."
The four victims were Justin Llivicura, 16, of East Patchogue; Jorge Tigre, 18, of, Bellport; Michael Lopez Benegas, 20, of Brentwood; and Jefferson Villalobos, 18, of Pompano Beach, Fla.
In pleading guilty in August to racketeering in the murder of the four, Portillo said that he "and another MS-13 member personally murdered Michael Lopez (Banegas) by stabbing him with knives."
In arguing that Portillo should get a 60-year sentence, federal prosecutors had stressed his prime role in the crime, writing in court papers that he "was the driving force behind the April 11 murders and he played a central in planning and carrying out the murders ... devising the plan to kill the victims, who were suspected of being rival gang members, by using female MS-13 associates to lure them into an isolated wooded area ... recruiting other MS-13 members and associates to commit the murders; coordinating the attack...and physically participating in the murders by striking the victims with a machete."
The impetus for the murders began several months before when Portillo "had an altercation with Witness-1 and several of the other victims," the prosecutors wrote.
The person identified only as Witness-1 was the fifth intended victim lured into the park, but who escaped while the other four targets were savagely attacked with machetes, clubs and tree limbs, prosecutors said.
Portillo and other MS-13 members "suspected" that the five "were members of the rival 18th Street gang and had represented themselves to be MS-13 members, when, in fact, they were not," the prosecutors wrote.
In the weeks leading up to the killings, Portillo and other MS-13 members were "involved in numerous discussions and meetings where photographs of Witness-1 flashing MS-13 hand signs were circulated," the prosecutors wrote.
Family members of the victims have denied that they were involved in gang activity.
