MS-13 Member Receives 15-Year Sentence for Role in Unsolved Murder

BOSTON — A member of La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, received a 15-year prison sentence in federal court here on May 6 for his participation in racketeering activity connected to a previously unsolved murder, the Justice Department said.

The defendant, identified in the department's release, was convicted under federal racketeering statutes for his role in the homicide as part of the gang's criminal enterprise. The case originated in the District of Massachusetts.

The sentence directly affects the defendant, who will serve 15 years in federal prison. It closes one previously unsolved murder investigated by federal authorities as part of broader MS-13 enforcement operations. The Justice Department has used the racketeering statute, which treats the gang as a continuing criminal enterprise, to prosecute members for violent crimes including murder.

The sentencing shifts the case from an open investigation to a completed federal conviction and term of incarceration. The 15-year term begins immediately upon sentencing on May 6. Federal racketeering convictions of this type require the defendant to serve the full sentence minus any good-time credit authorized by the Bureau of Prisons, after which he faces supervised release.

Downstream, the conviction requires the Bureau of Prisons to designate a facility and intake the defendant. It also obligates probation officers to prepare for eventual supervised release. The racketeering prosecution model used here triggers continued federal investigative focus on MS-13 command structures and membership rolls in the Northeast.

Other open homicide cases linked to the same MS-13 clique can now incorporate evidence developed during this prosecution under established rules of gang-enterprise admissibility.

This sentencing follows the department's long-running initiative to apply the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to transnational street gangs. The Justice Department has secured multiple convictions against MS-13 members in the District of Massachusetts using the same racketeering framework for murders and other violent crimes dating back more than a decade.