{"id":291033,"date":"2026-07-09T02:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T02:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/291033\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T02:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T02:20:10","slug":"second-suspect-arrested-in-slay-of-former-friend-and-theft-of-diamond-jewelry-in-the-bronx-cops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/291033\/","title":{"rendered":"Second suspect arrested in slay of former friend and theft of diamond jewelry in the Bronx: cops"},"content":{"rendered":"

A second suspect accused in the fatal shooting of his former friend and theft of his diamond jewelry<\/a> in a plot that involved placing a tracking device on the victim\u2019s car and tracing it to his Bronx home, has been arrested more than a year after the crime, police said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Welfy Espinal, 25, and Lenyn Toribio, 27, were charged in a federal indictment unsealed in June with interstate stalking resulting in death for the shocking slay of 24-year-old Jeremy Ortega in April 2025.<\/p>\n

At the time, Espinal was in police custody, but Toribio was still on the loose. Detectives picked up Toribio on Wednesday in the Bronx around 3:30 p.m. on charges of attempted murder and attempted manslaughter, police said.<\/p>\n

Espinal is charged with murder, manslaughter, and criminal possession of a firearm.<\/p>\n

Investigators traced the killers\u2019 scheme back to March 28, 2025, the day Toribio activated a GPS tracking device that Espinal placed under the victim\u2019s car a few days later, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said at Espinal\u2019s indictment in June.<\/p>\n

The pair used the device to track the victim the following day to an Upper Manhattan nightclub, where they observed Jeremy wearing diamond-studded jewelry.<\/p>\n

\"Police<\/p>\n

Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News<\/p>\n

A 24yr old man was pronounced dead at Jacobi Hospital after he was shot twice in the chest outside of 226 Quincy Avenue in the Bronx on Sunday April 13, 2025. 0821. (Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

On April 12, 2025, the suspects followed Jeremy to a Midtown restaurant, then drove to Throggs Neck to surveil the neighborhood where they planned to rob him later that night, circling the block around Jeremy\u2019s home for roughly 10 minutes, court documents say. The pair then left, switched vehicles, and returned about an hour before Jeremy arrived home. When they spotted their target, the suspects chased him down, shot him multiple times, and stole a bag containing the victim\u2019s diamond jewelry, Clayton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw everything,\u201d the victim\u2019s mother, Yokasta Ortega, told the Daily News in June. \u201cI was yelling, \u2018Please don\u2019t kill my son, please don\u2019t kill my son!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The bereaved mother said she had unlocked her home\u2019s front door for her son, who had forgotten his keys, and went upstairs to await his return. When she didn\u2019t hear him enter, she glanced outside to see Jeremy attempting to flee his attackers.<\/p>\n

\"YokastaYokasta Ortega (left) and Jayden Ortega, mother and brother of Jeremy Ortega, are pictured at the scene of the shooting on Quincy Ave. in the Bronx on Sunday, April 13, 2025. (Theodore Parisienne \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I realized he was running, I ran straight downstairs and then that\u2019s when I saw Welfy shooting him from behind,\u201d Yokasta said. \u201cIt was terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jeremy\u2019s sister, Brianna Ortega, said Espinal was an old friend of her brother\u2019s from high school and that the killer was once welcome in their home.<\/p>\n

Espinal \u201cwould do everything with Jeremy growing up,\u201d said Brianna, 19. \u201cThey would ride around in the car together. They would go play basketball \u2026 They would do a lot of stuff together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brianna Ortega said Toribio met Jeremy a few years earlier through Espinal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A second suspect accused in the fatal shooting of his former friend and theft of his diamond jewelry…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,111187,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-291033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-fatal-shooting-friend-jewelry-theft","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}