Accused MS-13 Members Laugh and Smile during Murder Trial

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Summary: Three alleged MS-13 gang members joked and smiled during their murder trial in New York. 

On Tuesday, three alleged members of a notorious Central American gang appeared jovial during their murder trial in New York. According to Fox News, the trio “showed no remorse” as the families of their victims looked on.

  

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Enrique Portillo, Alexi Saenz, and Jairo Saenz are on trial for the murder of a 16-year-old Brentwood, New York girl named Kayla Cuevas and her friend Nisa Mickens, 15.

The three alleged members of the Salvadoran gang, MS-13, reportedly laughed and joked around with each other as prosecutors waited to hear from the Department of Justice about whether or not they could pursue the death penalty. While the three appeared to have a good time during this serious event, the families of the slain girls looked on with anger.

Cuevas and Mickens were murdered near an elementary school on September 13, 2016. Mickens’ body was found in Brentwood while Cuevas’ body turned up in a backyard of a nearby home.

“We shouldn’t be tolerating this type of behavior, at all whatsoever. These are kids [getting killed], kids. This should not be tolerated at all,” Cuevas’ mother Evelyn Rodriguez told Fox News last year.

U.S. Attorney Robert L. Capers said that Cuevas was killed because she had made negative remarks about the gang at school and on social media. The Saenz brothers had allegedly ordered the hit on Cuevas, and her best friend Mickens was said to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“For far too long, MS-13 has been meting out their own version of the death penalty,” Capers said.

Portillo and two others were charged with killing the two girls as well. Since March 2017, 13 alleged MS-13 gang members were charged with multiple crimes, including seven murders.

The MS-13 gang is a major component of President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration campaign. He has stated that many undocumented immigrants have criminal backgrounds, and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has said that the Trump administration is committed to fighting MS-13.

MS-13 was started in Los Angeles in the 1980s by mostly immigrants from El Salvador, and it has since expanded. The gang is believed to have killed at least 25 people in New York City in the past two years.

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