John Jefferson
Inset: Elmer Alas Candray. Background: The location where a victim of MS-13 was found in Virginia. (WTTG).
An MS-13 gang leader in Virginia has been found guilty in a string of murders, including a 19-year-old server shot 16 times in the face after she disparaged the gang on social media.
Elmer Alas Candray, 27, was convicted on Monday in connection with 6 murders from 2018 to 2022, court documents said.
“This case is a stark reminder of the violence and disregard for human life inherent in MS-13’s criminal enterprise,” said U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber for the Eastern District of Virginia in a statement emailed to Law&Crime. “Their deadly activities, from flooding our streets with dangerous narcotics to the brutal murders by which they attempt to impose their presence, will not go unchecked. Their crimes will be met with the full attention and resources of this office and our law enforcement partners.”
The defendant’s defense attorney, Andrew Stewart, argued that among those testifying against Candray were fellow gang members, one of whom killed 10 people himself.
“Mr. Alas Candray is innocent,” Stewart said, the Washington Post reported. “The number of charges the government has brought is simply not supported by the evidence.”
The indictment outlines the bloodshed that dates back to Aug. 25, 2018, when the killing of Kevin Abarca Choto was “greenlit” for betraying the gang.
A witness told law enforcement that the victim owed the gang money, The Post reported.
Choto was beaten and strangled with a belt, and his body was cut up with knives in a bathtub before his remains were placed in trash bags and buried in the woods in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Court documents said. One co-defendant nicknamed “Dexter” stayed behind and cleaned the bathroom with bleach.
Those who participated in the killing were promoted up the ranks in the gang, prosecutors said.
Choto’s remains haven’t been found, the Post reported.
Jose Guillen Mejia, 24, was shot and hacked with a machete in May 2019, off a walking trail in Reston, an area the gang claimed as their turf, court documents said.
In September 2020, Iris Janet Ponce Garcia was lured to her death in the woods. She had disparaged the gang on social media, local Fox affiliate WTTG reported.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Braun told the court “They shot Iris 16 times, primarily in the face, leaving her unrecognizable,” the Post’s Salvador Rizzo reported.
In March 2021, Santos Antonio Trejo Lemus, 40, was ambushed in the entryway of the victim’s apartment.
In June 2022, Rene Pineda Sanchez, 27, was shot, and the gang had dropped at least one large rock on his head, court documents said.
Candray, along with others, stabbed and beat with a baseball bat a fellow gang member, Francisco Avelar “Papalito” Rivera, 42, also in 2022 for inflating his rank in the gang in Seneca Regional Park in Great Falls.
“They cut off his head. They cut off his hands. They cut off his arms. They cut off his legs,” Braun said. “They buried Papalito’s remains in the woods, where they were undiscovered for more than a year.”
Candray faces life in prison when he is set to be sentenced on Jan. 30.
MS-13 — or La Mara Salvatrucha — is made up primarily of immigrants or descendants of immigrants from El Salvador, with members operating in the Commonwealth of Virginia and the U.S., court documents said. The MS-13 gang has been functioning since at least the 1980s in the U.S. MS-13 originated in Los Angeles, California, where MS-13 members banded together for protection against the larger Mexican groups before it quickly spread to states across the country.
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