An MS-13 gang member nicknamed “Little Devil” or “Diablita” has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after she lured a group of men into a Long Island park where they were hacked to death with machetes.
Leniz Escobar, 24, was sentenced by Judge Joseph Bianco on Tuesday for her part in the brutal 2017 murders of Justin Llivicura, 16, Michael Lopez, 20, Jorge Tigre, 18, and Jefferson Villalobos, 18.
On the night of April 11, 2017, Escobar and co-conspirator, Keyli Gomez, drove with the four victims and a fifth man Elmer Alexander Arteaga Ruiz, 22, to a wooded area in Central Islip Park, and texted gang members of their arrival, a federal courthouse heard.
Multiple MS-13 members – Josue Portillo, Freiry Martinez, Alexis Hernandez, Edwin Rodriguez, Sergio Segovia-Pineda, Omar Antonio Villalta, Henry Salmeron, Anderson Sanchez, and others – then attacked the victims with “machetes, knives, an axe, and wooden clubs,” according to testimony at Escobar’s trial.
Ruiz, who survived after managing to run away, testified that the gang members emerged “through a hole in the fence” with their faces covered and circled the victims,The Daily Mail reported.
“They told us get down on our knees. They said, ‘Don’t move. Whoever moves, dies’,” he told the court.
The trial heard how the attack unfolded after Escobar and Gomez found two of the victims had posted photos on social media showing them wearing items and flashing hand signs that suggested they were members of MS-13.
They showed the posts to MS-13 members who confirmed they were not part of the gang and would be killed.
Ruiz testified that his friends had only posted online about MS-13 to impress girls – they “were just high school kids”, he said.
Following the murders, Escobar relished the killings and “licked their blood off her lips”, The New York Post reported a witness testified at her trial.
She bragged to other gang members about her role in the killings and told her boyfriend – who is allegedly a high-ranking member of the Brentwood MS-13 clique – that something had happened to the men, including that one fled and now “knows stuff about me”, prosecutors said.
She then tried to destroy evidence, disposing of one of the victims’ blood-stained sweatshirts, throwing her phone out of a moving vehicle while police followed her, and giving a false alibi for the night of the massacre.
After a four-week trial, Escobar was convicted in April 2022 on charges of predicate acts of murder, conspiracy to murder rival gang members, obstruction of justice, and murder in aid of racketeering.
Following Escobar’s sentencing on Tuesday, Suffolk County Police Acting Commissioner Robert Waring said in a statement: “The senseless and brutal murder of four young people... sent shockwaves across the nation. Leniz Escobar played a significant role in leading four victims to their deaths and will pay the necessary price for her part.”
Over a dozen MS-13 gang members and associates have now been charged in connection with the 2017 murders. Escobar is the fifth to be sentenced.
Gomez previously pleaded guilty to racketeering charges in connection with the murders and testified at Escobar’s trial.
The MS-13 gang originated in El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, but has dispersed and now has thousands of members – many of them in the US. MS-13 is categorized as the most violent criminal gang on Long Island, said prosecutors.
