Former gang member draws life sentence in killing of girlfriend

A former member of the MS-13 street gang, who was on the FBI's Most Wanted list for a day before he was arrested, was sentenced to life in prison Monday for killing a girlfriend in a shocking crime that also led to the killing of her 2-year-old son, according to officials.

Juan Garcia, 22, who has lived in Baldwin and Inwood, had pleaded guilty in 2014 to the 2010 killing of Vanessa Argueta, then 19, in a wooded area of Central Islip at the same time her 2-year-old son, Diego Torres was also shot to death.

Before he was sentenced, Garcia told U.S. District Judge Joseph Bianco in federal court in Central Islip, in an English translation of a Spanish statement: "I am not capable of expressing the sorrow I feel for having killed my former girlfriend and for not preventing the death of her child. It rips at me. What I did was terrible and my shooting a young mother and participating in the murder of the baby haunt me with guilt feelings and will make me sick until I die. I cry for them every day. . . . I have matured since I joined MS-13. I despise myself for the weakness that led me to join. I have found my true father, Jehovah. . . . I have found the love of Jesus Christ and His love of me."

The United States Attorney for the Eastern District, Robert Capers, said in a statement after the sentencing: "The MS-13 is infamous for committing senseless and brutal acts of violence, but, even for the MS-13, the murders of Vanessa Argueta and Diego Torres were particularly depraved and callous."

Garcia and two other members of the gang lured Argueta to the woods in February 2010 to kill her for what they believed was disrespecting the gang. She took her toddler along, thinking they were all going to a restaurant, officials have said.

A second gang member, Adalberto Guzman, of Central Islip, shot the toddler, thinking that he might grow up and seek revenge, according to officials. A third gang member, Rene Mejia, of Brentwood and Patchogue, pleaded guilty in the case and is awaiting sentencing.

Guzman was sentenced to life in prison in October 2014.

Garcia's defense attorney, Barry Rhodes, of Manhattan, had asked that his client be sentenced to a long sentence but less than life because he was 17 years old when the killings were committed, he quit the gang almost immediately afterward, has matured and has been continually remorseful. Rhodes said yesterday that his client "started crying from the moment he did this and hasn't stopped to this day."

But in court papers, federal prosecutors John Durham and Raymond Tierney called for the life sentence, saying: "A simple truth remains: Vanessa Argueta and Diego Torres would be alive today, but for the defendant . . . the defendant was a driving force behind the Argueta and Torres murders."

Garcia fled to Central America after the killings and was a fugitive for four years until he was tracked down in March 2014 by the FBI's Long Island Gang Task Force. Garcia had been placed on the bureau's Most Wanted list and a $100,000 reward had been offered for information leading to his capture.

By Robert E. Kessler

Robert.Kessler@newsday.com

Bob Kessler covers federal law, including law enforcement agencies such as the FBI, DEA, IRS and ATF, as well as the federal courts.