The young men from MS-13 lived mostly in the cramped urban districts of Van Nuys, Panorama City and North Hollywood. <\/p>\n
But it was in the mountains north and west of Los Angeles, where, as one alleged gang member put it in a recorded jailhouse sting, they went \u201cto play.\u201d <\/p>\n
At a remote helipad and scenic overlooks, many miles from any witnesses or good Samaritans who might intervene, the gangsters \u2014 some just teenagers \u2014 killed four people between 2017 and 2019, Deputy Dist. Atty. Eric Siddall told a jury Tuesday in federal court. The five alleged MS-13 members on trial were also charged with killing two people in Van Nuys and North Hollywood. <\/p>\n
Also known as the Mara Salvatrucha, MS-13 was founded 40 years ago by Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles. It has since metastasized into an international criminal organization led by imprisoned gang members in Central America. <\/p>\n
Over a two-month trial, prosecutors made the case that the local branches of the gang became far more violent around 2016. An influx of gangsters from Central America brought with them \u201cthe Salvadoran rules,\u201d which required prospective members to kill to prove their loyalty, said Siddall, who was deputized to lead the federal racketeering prosecution. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe more ruthless the killing, the greater the respect that was earned,\u201d he told the jury.<\/p>\n
One victim was stabbed 107 times, while another was disemboweled while still alive, Siddall said. <\/p>\n
Defense attorneys argued the prosecution\u2019s cooperating witnesses \u2014 eight admitted killers who struck plea deals \u2014 lied in exchange for lighter sentences. Another lawyer for the accused compared MS-13 members with \u201cchild soldiers\u201d who have been inured to extreme displays of violence. <\/p>\n
One attorney said his client \u201cdid what he had to do\u201d to survive. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you fail to follow an order to participate in a killing,\u201d he said, \u201cyou\u2019re next.\u201d<\/p>\n
The motive for all of the killings was essentially the same, Siddall said: The defendants spilled blood in hopes of being recognized as \u201chomeboys,\u201d or full-fledged members of MS-13. <\/p>\n
The tangible benefits were negligible. Upon initiation, homeboys weren\u2019t handed control of lucrative drug dealing or extortion rackets. The privileges amounted to being allowed to make MS-13 hand signs and having \u201cparos,\u201d lower-level associates, to \u201cboss around,\u201d the prosecutor said. <\/p>\n
To hear prosecutors tell it, MS-13 members in Los Angeles were subpar racketeers but prolific killers. They shook down street vendors for chump change and sold marijuana, but their primary focus, Siddall argued, was seeking out enemies \u2014 rivals outside the gang and perceived traitors within. <\/p>\n
A kill represented a chance for advancement. When the leaders of three MS-13 \u201ccliques,\u201d or subsets, decided to kill a man for throwing an unauthorized gang hand sign, Siddall said, 11 people took part in stabbing and hacking him to death in a kind of group initiation.<\/p>\n
The victim was Elvin Hernandez, a doughy 20-year-old nicknamed \u201cWinnie Pooh\u201d who wasn\u2019t in MS-13 but hung around people who were. In Facebook messages obtained by the FBI, a woman told a leader of the Park View clique that Hernandez was claiming membership in the gang. The clique leader said they\u2019d hold \u201ccourt\u201d to judge and punish Hernandez. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MS-13 members once lived in this \u201cdestroyer,\u201d an abandoned and burned-out home on South Berendo Street in Koreatown.<\/p>\n
(Jason Armond \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
The night of June 4, 2017, Hernandez was brought to a \u201cdestroyer\u201d \u2014 MS-13\u2019s term for abandoned homes where they live, party, sell drugs and kill \u2014 where the leaders of the Park View, Francis and Fulton cliques held a \u201croll call,\u201d Siddall said. When it was Hernandez\u2019s turn to introduce himself, he made an MS-13 hand sign. <\/p>\n
The leader of the Fulton clique, Walter Chavez Larin, assaulted Hernandez and took away the machete he was carrying. Then everyone loaded up in two cars and drove Hernandez to the \u201cToo Late\u201d helipad in the Angeles National Forest, Siddall said. <\/p>\n
Thinking he was only due for a beating, Hernandez laid face down before 11 people took turns stabbing him. According to Siddall, Chavez Larin told the dying man: \u201cThe Grim Reaper just took you away.\u201d <\/p>\n
Robert Schwarz, a lawyer who represents Chavez Larin, 26, argued his client was implicated by lying witnesses who have admitted killing Hernandez themselves. <\/p>\n
The lawyer described his bald, round-faced client as a wannabe gangster who sucked up to gang leaders but lacked the nerve to kill.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe didn\u2019t go up that mountain to kill Elvin Hernandez because that\u2019s not who he is,\u201d Schwarz said. \u201cHe\u2019s the ultimate poser.\u201d <\/p>\n
The gang struck again six months after Hernandez\u2019s death, when Brayan Andino slipped out of Panorama High School with a girl. <\/p>\n
Andino, 16, had left Honduras four years earlier to join his mother in the San Fernando Valley, according to evidence presented at a trial in 2020. He claimed to belong to 18th Street, MS-13\u2019s most bitter rival, but a campus police officer testified it was only the foolish bluff of a 10th-grader who wanted to seem tough. <\/p>\n
Andino\u2019s best friend \u2014 the girl he cut class with \u2014 was in a relationship with a young MS-13 hanger-on. She testified she lured Andino to Balboa Park, where they were met by an MS-13 member who suggested they smoke marijuana in the mountains. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brayan Andino \u2014 and several of his killers \u2014 attended Panorama High School.<\/p>\n
(Al Seib \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
In Lopez Canyon above Sylmar, Andino was ambushed by six teenagers and young men. One was Roberto Corado Ortiz, the reputed leader of a small MS-13 clique called the Los Angeles Locos, Siddall said. <\/p>\n
Corado told police he went to Lopez Canyon to \u201cevaluate\u201d a prospect, Bryan Rosales Arias. After they killed Andino with a garrote, baseball bat and serrated knife that Corado called \u201cthe gut ripper,\u201d the clique leader looked disapprovingly on one of the killers who vomited during the drive home, Siddall said.<\/p>\n
Andino\u2019s remains were only found after a wildfire blew through Lopez Canyon, burning away the brush to reveal a charred skeleton. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A desolate drive on Lopez Canyon Road above the San Fernando Valley near where 16-year-old Brayan Andino was killed by alleged MS-13 members.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
Corado\u2019s lawyer, Oliver Cleary, all but acknowledged his client had killed when he told the jury, \u201ceverything he did, he did to live.\u201d <\/p>\n
Corado, 30, grew up in El Salvador and joined MS-13 when he was 11, Cleary said. For Corado, the kill-or-be-killed rules of the gang were \u201call-encompassing,\u201d his lawyer said.<\/p>\n
Rosales\u2019 attorney, Vitaly Sigal, said authorities had suborned lies from killers by dangling the prospect of freedom. He cited a transcript of a police interview in which an investigator told a prospective witness he needed to bring the \u201chungry prosecutor\u201d a \u201cplate of pupusas\u201d before the witness would be allowed to eat a pupusa himself. <\/p>\n
Sigal noted the two men who testified against his client had admitted 10 slayings between them. \u201cSo they join Team USA,\u201d he argued, \u201cand now everything they say is the absolute truth.\u201d <\/p>\n
Nine months after Andino was killed, Corado took another victim up to the mountains, Siddall argued. <\/p>\n
With him was Roger Chavez, 19, who had emigrated from Honduras three years earlier, a relative told The Times. He struggled to fit in at Huntington Park High School and dropped out, hoping to learn his older brother\u2019s trade as a diesel mechanic. <\/p>\n
When a friend proposed they smoke marijuana with an ocean view the afternoon of July 21, 2018, Chavez agreed. He either wasn\u2019t aware the friend was affiliated with MS-13 or he was wildly naive. Like Andino, Chavez claimed to be affiliated with the rival 18th Street gang.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MS-13 graffitti in Los Angeles in April 2018.<\/p>\n
(Marcus Yam \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
In the mountains above Malibu, Chavez and his friend were met by Corado, Rosales\u2019 brother Erick and another MS-13 member. Chavez took out his phone. In a Snapchat video shown in court, he flashed an 18th Street hand sign and panned over his companions, who turned their faces away. Corado would later tell the police that when Chavez took the video, he knew \u201cwe screwed this one up.\u201d <\/p>\n
But rather than calling off the hit, they waited until nightfall, smoking and drinking with Chavez, before Corado shot him in the back of the head, Siddall said. Corado then passed the gun around so everyone could shoot, the prosecutor argued. <\/p>\n
Arrested for the homicide and held in a bugged jail cell, Erick Rosales told his cellmate \u2014 a police informant \u2014 that it \u201ctook some bulls\u2014ing\u201d to get Chavez to the mountains, but he \u201ctotally trusted us.\u201d <\/p>\n
Erick Rosales\u2019 lawyer, Carlos Juarez, argued the jailhouse statement wasn\u2019t reliable because his client, then 19, was physically intimidated by the larger, older informant who held himself out as a gang leader. <\/p>\n
Asked by his cellmate what he felt after shooting the teenager, Erick Rosales said: \u201cLike going to get high.\u201d <\/p>\n
Not all the killings took place in the mountains. <\/p>\n
Osvaldo Hernandez, 22, had just returned from the gym the night of Dec. 6, 2018, when an MS-13 member spotted him near his family\u2019s Van Nuys apartment, Siddall said. <\/p>\n
Hernandez was hanging out with a friend in an alley covered in graffiti from warring gangs but he was not affiliated with any crew, Siddall said. His father told The Times he\u2019d just opened his own business, Ozzie\u2019s Mechanic Shop in Canoga Park, after saving up and learning to fix cars while working at a dealership. <\/p>\n
Chavez Larin, the reputed leader of the Fulton clique, was driving around with some prospects when they spotted Hernandez, according to Siddall. The prosecutor said Chavez Larin handed a gun to Edwin Martinez and a juvenile. The two walked up to Hernandez and demanded, \u201cWhere you from?\u201d <\/p>\n
The last thing Hernandez said was, \u201cOh, f\u2014.\u201d <\/p>\n
According to Siddall, Martinez killed twice more in the next five weeks. <\/p>\n
Oscar Fuentes, a skinny 19-year-old member of MS-13, had broken two rules, Siddall said: He\u2019d gotten strung out on methamphetamine and he was missing clique meetings.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MS-13 claimed Whitsett Park in North Hollywood as its territory.<\/p>\n
(Genaro Molina \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
On Jan. 13, 2019, Fuentes was spotted at Whitsett Park, the heart of the Fulton clique\u2019s territory. Martinez sent a Facebook message to the juvenile with whom he\u2019d allegedly killed Hernandez a month earlier. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou have a little present here,\u201d Martinez wrote. <\/p>\n
After the juvenile didn\u2019t respond, Martinez, Chavez and two others picked up Fuentes from the park and drove him to a remote area near Santa Clarita, Siddall said. Chavez handed a revolver to a prospect who shot Fuentes in the head, according to the prosecutor. <\/p>\n
Fuentes\u2019 remains were never located. Detectives found only a skull, unearthed, like Andino\u2019s bones, after a wildfire, with a bullet hole through the forehead. <\/p>\n
Martinez\u2019s lawyer, Shaun Khojayan, argued it was possible that Fuentes simply disappeared and is still alive. The only proof that Martinez was involved in any killings was the word of cooperators whose accounts weren\u2019t supported by physical evidence, Khojayan said. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A sunset view of the San Fernando Valley from the spot in Lopez Canyon where Brayan Andino was killed in 2017.<\/p>\n
(Myung J. Chun \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
A few hours after Fuentes was killed, Martinez returned to Whitsett Park with two others, Siddall said. Chavez Larin had ordered them in a Facebook message to \u201ctake out the trash.\u201d <\/p>\n
The three began waking up homeless people, demanding to see their tattoos, Siddall said. When they lifted up Bradley Hanaway\u2019s shirt, they saw the San Fernando Valley area code, \u201c818,\u201d and the words \u201cForever Grateful,\u201d the prosecutor said. <\/p>\n
Mistaking the numbers and letters for a show of allegiance to 18th Street, they shot Hanaway to death, Siddall said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHis major sin was he was sleeping in their park,\u201d the prosecutor said. \u201cTheir park. As if they own it.\u201d <\/p>\n
The jury began deliberating Wednesday. If convicted, the defendants face life in prison. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The young men from MS-13 lived mostly in the cramped urban districts of Van Nuys, Panorama City and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28446,28445,28444,28443,28450,48,52,51,1429,23151,47,50,49,63,66,28448,28449,7214,28447,28451,9138],"class_list":["post-42396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-brayan-andino","tag-corado","tag-elvin-hernandez","tag-eric-siddall","tag-gang","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-lawyer","tag-leader","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mountain","tag-ms-13","tag-ms-13-member","tag-prosecutor","tag-roger-chavez","tag-rosales","tag-witness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}