Ex-MS-13 gang leader sentenced to 30 years in prison for role in 2016 Brentwood murder

A former MS-13 gang leader apologized to the mother of a teenager whose killing he admitted orchestrating in 2016, saying he wished the murder had never happened.

"I can’t return the son to the mother," Carlos Argueta said in Spanish to the mother of fellow gang member Jose Pena, before being sentenced to 30 years in prison by visiting Circuit Court Judge Joseph Bianco in federal court in Central Islip. "The only thing I can say is that I am sorry."

Argueta said, "It is never too late to repent...An apology is not enough but it is all I can do."

The 22-year-old also expressed remorse to his own mother, who attended the hearing with his two young brothers and sister, for not being available to help raise his siblings.

"I want to be with my family," he said.

Prosecutors asked Newsday not to identify Pena's mother because she has received threats in the past. She declined to address the court or comment after Thursday's hearing.

"Her pain and anguish that she felt the day she lost her son is just as strong today and will be with her for the rest of her life," Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District Paul Scotti told Bianco.

Scotti asked Bianco to send Argueta to prison for 35 years because of Argueta's leadership role in planning the murder.

He also said Argueta had been repeatedly disciplined for infractions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he has been held since his arrest.

Bianco said he believed Argueta's remorse was genuine, but said he had to sentence the defendant to 30 years because of the horrific nature of the crime and to deter future violence.

"MS 13 terrorizes communities it operates in," he said.

"There are no winners here," Argueta’s attorney, Glenn Obedin of Central Islip said after the hearing. He had asked the judge for a 20-year sentence for his client. "This is a tragedy for everyone."

Argueta was also sentenced for the attempted murder of a member of a rival gang known as the Goon Squad, which occurred in January of 2016 in broad daylight outside the Brentwood Public Library.

In 2019, Argueta, an immigrant from El Salvador who lived in Brentwood before his arrest, had pleaded guilty to racketeering in connection with Pena's killing and the Brentwood shooting.

Argueta, who was known by the street names of Violento, Desorden and Dylan, was the leader of what was known as the Freeport Locos Salvatruchas clique of MS-13, though it operated mainly in Suffolk, according to court papers and sources. Desorden means disorder in Spanish, and Violento means violent.

Pena was killed because he was believed to be a police informant and gay, according to officials, both violations of the street gang’s code. Argueta received approval from the leadership of the gang in El Salvador to kill Pena, officials have said.

Pena, 18, was lured into the woods on the grounds of Pilgrim State Hospital in Brentwood by Argueta and several other MS-13 members and stabbed and slashed to death with knives, officials said.

Pena was with Argueta and other MS-13 members near the Brentwood Library when they got into a confrontation with members of the Goon Squad, federal prosecutors said.

Argueta took out a .45-caliber semiautomatic from his waistband and shot an unidentified member of the rival gang four times in the torso, according to court records. The victim survived. Afterward, Argueta suspected that Pena had informed the police about the shooting, officials said.

Though Pena's murder was committed in June, Pena’s body was not discovered until October, a month after the September slaying of two Brentwood High school students, Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16. Other members of MS-13 have been charged in the killing of the teenagers.

The brutal slaying of the two girls set off a national furor with both former President Donald Trump and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowing to crush the gang.

Argueta was only 16 years and six months old at the time of the crime, court papers said. But federal prosecutors successfully argued that Argueta should be treated as an adult because as a juvenile he could only be sentenced to a maximum of five years in a juvenile prison.

Bianco agreed, saying that given Argueta’s history of violence, loyalty to MS-13, and character, it was unlikely that he would be successfully rehabilitated in that time.

Three other alleged members of MS-13 were also prosecuted in the Pena killing.