A member of the infamous MS-13 street gang pleaded guilty Thursday to murdering four people, including two teenage girls who were assaulted with a machete and baseball bats as they strolled through their Long Island community seven years ago.
Best friends Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, were ambushed by gang members in 2016 as punishment for a disagreement amongst high school students. Enrique Portillo, a 26-year-old man, was one of the suspects.
On September 13, 2016, Portillo and other MS-13 gang members were driving about Brentwood looking for rival gang members to kill and attack when they discovered Kayla and Nisa strolling through a residential area. Portillo and the others stepped out of the car and used baseball bats and a machete to pursue down and kill both girls, who had allegedly been fighting with gang members at school. The bodies of the two were reportedly found in the following hours by police.
“As part of his desire to gain status within MS-13, Portillo repeatedly acted with complete disregard for human life, killing four individuals along with multiple other attempts,” U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said in a statement.
In addition to admitting to racketeering, Portillo also acknowledged watching as gang members shot and murdered a 29-year-old man inside a Central Islip deli in 2017 and wielding a baseball bat in a deadly gang attack on a 34-year-old man in 2016.
Long Island gang violence had been an issue for more than ten years, but following the deaths of the high school girls, local law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, invested heavily in a crackdown. Donald Trump, who was president at the time, visited Brentwood shortly after the horrible murder and pledged to wage a fierce battle against MS-13, declaring that he would “dismantle, decimate, and eradicate” the gang.
