A top MS-13 member on Long Island has pleaded guilty to seven murders, including two high-profile cases involving teenage girls.
Long Island: A high-ranking MS-13 member, Jairo Saenz, just pleaded guilty to seven murders. This includes the shocking killings of two teenage girls that really caught the nation’s attention.
Saenz, who’s 28, is looking at 40 to 60 years behind bars when he gets sentenced on June 13. His brother, Alexi, also pleaded guilty in these cases last July.
These brothers were in charge of a local MS-13 chapter called Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside. From early 2016 to early 2017, they were behind a string of violent crimes in usually peaceful Long Island neighborhoods.
Acting U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny described Saenz’s actions as barbaric, saying they turned parts of Long Island into a war zone.
The most notorious murders were of Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, in Brentwood back in September 2016. Kayla had some run-ins with MS-13 members at her high school, which led the gang to target her.
On that tragic night, while walking with Nisa, a group of MS-13 members spotted them and called the Saenz brothers for the go-ahead to kill the girls. They were brutally beaten with baseball bats and then hacked to death with machetes.
Saenz also admitted to killing several others, including Michael Johnson and Oscar Acosta. Many of these victims were lured to remote spots before facing a similar fate.
During his court appearance, Saenz acknowledged his wrongdoings, saying, “I did these things, and I knew they were wrong.”
He was arrested in March 2017. Back in 2020, under President Trump, prosecutors aimed for the death penalty for both brothers, but that plan changed when President Biden took office.
Saenz’s guilty plea comes just days before Trump is set to return to office, a president who oversaw numerous executions during his term.
