Judges in Maryland and Virginia handed down life sentences to MS-13 members last week in separate cases after they were convicted of brutal murders carried out over social media insults and defaced gang graffiti.
Elmer Lopez-Cortez, 26, of Silver Spring, and Junior Del-Cid, 21, of Takoma Park, were both given life without parole Friday in Maryland state court for a 2022 shooting that killed one and wounded two others.
And in federal court Thursday in Virginia, 27-year-old gang leader Elmer de Jesus Alas Candray was given life in prison after he was implicated in six murders between 2018 and 2022.
“These deaths speak volumes about the defendant,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Braun said at Alas Candray’s hearing Thursday, according to the Washington Post. “He gangs up on his victims, he shoots them in the back, and he defiles their corpses.”
Court documents show Alas Candray was convicted in killings that range from internal gang hits to beating people to death with baseball bats.
Prosecutors said the gang member from Reston helped beat and strangle a Massachusetts-based MS-13 member in August 2018 after the victim was thought to have betrayed gang leadership.
The following summer, the filings said Alas Candray and other gang members shot and hacked a 24-year-old man to death with machetes because the victim would drink in an area of Reston considered gang territory.
Alas Candray helped devise a plan to kill a 19-year-old woman in September 2020 who insulted the gang on social media and was thought to be part of a rival gang, according to prosecutors. The MS-13 members lured the woman to a location, and each took turns shooting her in the face.
Court documents said Alas Candray shot and killed a 40-year-old man who was thought to be a rival gang member in March 2021.
Prosecutors said Alas Candray had his hand in two killings in 2022.
The first took place in May when MS-13 members saw a 27-year-old man walking on a Reston footpath considered gang territory. Alas Candray and others killed the victim by jumping him and then dropping a large rock on his head.
Less than three weeks later, Alas Candray and another conspirator picked up a 42-year-old man who had disrespected MS-13. Alas Candray took the victim deep into Seneca Regional Park where a group of gangsters killed him by repeatedly stabbing him and beating him with a baseball bat.
The victim was then buried in a covert grave in the park, according to court documents.
In Maryland, Lopez-Cortez and Del-Cid were sentenced over a November 2022 shooting that killed a 19-year-old man and sent two other victims to the hospital. A fourth person with the group of victims managed to escape the shooting without being hit by gunfire.
Montgomery County prosecutors said Lopez-Cortez and Del-Cid opened fire on the group — with whom they had no prior relationship — after they became convinced the victims defaced gang graffiti in the Piney Branch neighborhood of Takoma Park.
Co-conspirator Elvin Guzman-Machato, 20, will be sentenced Feb. 21, while accused co-conspirator Jonathan Leon-Chacon, 26, is still awaiting trial.
• Matt Delaney can be reached at mdelaney@washingtontimes.com.