Kayla Alvarenga convicted of ordering killing of man who parked in front of her Bay Shore house

A Suffolk County jury has convicted the alleged leader of a Bay Shore street gang of ordering the 2022 murder of a Central Islip man who parked outside her home to sleep after having too much to drink.

Kayla Alvarenga, 23, of Bay Shore, was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery in the death of 29-year-old Linver Ortiz Ponce on Sept. 17. The jury convicted her after deliberating for three days, reaching the verdict Thursday afternoon.

She entered the Riverhead courtroom in handcuffs, looking back where her grandmother sat waiting for the verdict to be read. She didn't visibly react to the verdict and just looked at her family on her way out.

Before reaching a verdict, jurors sent a dozen notes to acting state Supreme Court Justice Anthony Senft in Riverhead, requesting the readback of testimony on cellphone calls, social media photos and video surveillance footage, and definitions of charges.

The victim’s brother, Jaime Ortiz, hugged prosecutors after the verdict was read.

“It gives me a peace of mind,” Ortiz said afterward. “I know it's not going to bring my brother back, but I'm happy that all of them are not going to be out here, trying to hurt other families.”

Ortiz said his brother was an innocent victim in the case, targeted only for sleeping in his car outside her home.

“He's not bothering anybody or hurting anybody ... ” Ortiz said. “They kidnapped him, they beat him, then they just killed him in the parking lot of a church. It's just not right.”

Alvarenga was already serving 17 years for pleading guilty to robbery for her role in another killing committed by the "Family Over Everything, Everybody Killed" gang, and now faces the possibility of being sentenced to life in prison when she returns to court April 28.

"She is the commander," Assistant District Attorney Sheetal Shetty had told the jury of Alvarenga’s role in the street gang that prosecutors said grew out of her home. "She ordered this death."

During three weeks of testimony, 35 witnesses, including four co-defendants who entered into cooperating agreements, told the jury how Alvarenga offered young men from broken homes a place to smoke weed, chase girls and handle weapons free of adult supervision. A "master manipulator," she demanded total loyalty from gang members with threats and beatings, Shetty told the jury during closing arguments Monday.

When Alvarenga ordered members to beat and kill Ponce, they listened, the prosecutor said.

One witness, Christopher Perdomo, acknowledged that he fired four shots into Ortiz Ponce.

Alvarenga’s defense attorney, Jonathan Manley, of Hauppauge, rejected the prosecution’s contention that Alvarenga, just 20 at the time, controlled the young men.

"This was not a cult," Manley said. "She is not Charles Manson. These men were not brainwashed." 

Manley urged jurors to dismiss the witnesses' testimonies, accusing them of pinning the blame on Alvarenga in return for lighter sentences.

"They make deals with the devils to blame her," Manley said of prosecutors.

Ortiz Ponce had gone to a bar to meet a woman he was interested in the night before he was killed, prosecutors said. He had begun work at 4 a.m. and was exhausted and intoxicated when he left the bar. Ortiz Ponce drove away in his red Camaro but pulled over soon after, parking in front of Alvarenga’s house. He did not know Alvarenga, according to authorities, and he was a stranger to the gang.

Alvarenga’s followers, the prosecutor said, had spent the hours before the Ortiz Ponce killing stirring up trouble, driving around Suffolk County in a stolen BMW. First, they attempted to rob a drug dealer, but he never showed up. They later tried to steal a bag from a woman leaving Jake’s 58 Casino Hotel in Islandia, but she fought them off.

Alvarenga, nervous after spotting Ortiz Ponce outside her house, ordered the gang to return. The defendants, each armed with a gun, pulled the groggy victim out of his car, Shetty said. They kicked and punched Ortiz Ponce before driving off in his Camaro. Ortiz Ponce fled, but Alvarenga, worried he might identify gang members, ordered the gang to find him.

Alvarenga, driving the Camaro, spotted Ortiz Ponce hiding in a nearby gas station. She turned off the lights of the car and waited for her followers to join her, Shetty said.

"She is watching him," the prosecutor said, showing surveillance video from the gas station, "like a predator in wait." 

The gang members grabbed Ortiz Ponce and carried him to the BMW. Alvarenga led them to a church parking lot, where they pulled the victim out of the stolen vehicle and dropped him on the ground. Perdomo shot him four times, prosecutors said.

A witness who called 911 after the shooting told the jury she saw people outside the church from her nearby bedroom window and heard the shots.

Although Perdomo fired the weapon, Shetty said, there was no doubt who was the brains behind the slaying.

"Make no mistake," she told the jury. "The defendant is running the show."

Alvarenga was also among a group of the gang’s members and associates charged in the 2021 robbery and killing of a Dix Hills man during what prosecutors described as a botched robbery attempt. Louis Lombardo, 28, was shot through a garage door in Huntington Station.

Prosecutors said at the time of indictment that the group had planned to steal drugs from the home that evening. Two of the cooperating witnesses at Alvarenga’s trial were also charged in that killing.