MS-13 member testifies associate lured 4 young men to their deaths
Defendant Leniz Escobar, a.k.a. “Diablita” Credit: USANYE
An admitted MS-13 gang member who confessed to his role in the 2017 MS-13 machete killings of four young men in a Central Islip park testified Tuesday that a female associate of the gang lured the victims to their deaths after they became targets of the gang.
"She was one of those who helped convince the victims to come out where we, the members of the gang, would be waiting for them," said Sergio Vladimir Segovia Pineda, who said his street name was "Temible," which he said means someone "to be feared" in Spanish. "I took part in it. I helped to capture the victims and I also helped to kill the victims."
Segovia Pineda, 22, of Central Islip, testified for the government at the trial of Leniz Escobar, 22, in federal court in Central Islip.
Federal prosecutors said Escobar was a "devoted associate" of the gang who invited Elmer Alexander Artiaga-Ruiz, 22, to the park to smoke marijuana the night of the attack in order to gain respect from the gang. Women are not permitted to join MS-13. Artiaga-Ruiz, the lone survivor of the attack, testified Monday about his harrowing escape.
Escobar has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of murder and racketeering in connection with the April 11, 2017, killings of Jorge Tigre, 18; Michael Lopez, 20; Jefferson Villalobos, 18; and Justin Llivicura, 16.
Segovia Pineda, who said he left the gang after agreeing to cooperate with federal authorities, said he came to the United States at 15 by illegally crossing the southern border. He said he joined MS-13 on Long Island and he was arrested on April 26, 2017.
He has pleaded guilty to his role in the four murders and is awaiting sentencing.
Earlier Tuesday, Suffolk County Police Det. Jeffrey Bottari, a 29-year veteran of the department who's worked in homicide since 2008, testified that it took nearly 24 hours to process the scene at the park.
“I’ve seen the unimaginable at times, [or] so I thought until I got to the scene,” Bottari said. “What happened to those boys, it goes without saying we were going to slow things down and process that scene.”
Asked to describe the scene by prosecutor Justina Geraci, Bottari said: "This was by far one of the most horrific crime scenes we've ever handled....it was just vicious, unexplainable, unimaginable."
All four of the victims suffered "blunt force sharp trauma" and had defensive wounds to their hands, Bottari said. Two of the victims' jaw bones were exposed, Bottari said.
The bodies were “dragged over an asphalt pathway and into a wooded area,” Bottari said. Droplets of blood were found on a fence and on two sticks. Tigre's DNA was on the sticks, he said.
Bottari also described how investigators got a court-ordered real-time tracker for the cellphone of Escobar, who was then thought to be a witness in the early days after the killings because of "the possibility that one of the perpetrators may have taken it."
Bottari tracked the phone to an Islip Terrace intersection and found a blue Honda with Virginia plates in a 7-Eleven parking lot. He and other undercover detectives tailed the Honda, with a male driver and Escobar in the front passenger seat, and saw "something being thrown from the front passenger window" while it traveled westbound on the Southern Stare Parkway.
Police later recovered an LG cellphone — its battery and SIM card missing — from shoulder of the parkway, Bottari said.
Dr. Gerard Catanese, a retired Suffolk County medical examiner who performed the autopsies of Lopez and Tigre, said from the stand that both victims suffered multiple injuries to their heads that indicated they had been struck with sharp instruments such as machetes.
Tigre had nine "sharp force" injuries to his scalp — some up to 5 inches in length — skull fractures and brain contusions, Catanese said.
Lopez also had "sharp force" scalp injuries, skull fractures and part of his skull was broken into small pieces, Cantanese said.
"It requires a lot of force to break the skull into little pieces," said Cantanese. "He was struck at least five times in the head with a sharp instrument."
Earlier Tuesday, one of Escobar's attorneys, Jesse Siegel, cross-examined the sole survivor of the attack, Artiaga-Ruiz, previously a Ronkonkoma resident, on his connection to MS-13.
Artiaga-Ruiz denied Tuesday he was a gang member.
Siegel asked Artiaga-Ruiz about his arrest in March 15, 2017 — less than a month before the killings — by Suffolk police after he and Lopez were found smoking marijuana in a car in Brentwood. Artiaga-Ruiz said he didn't remember if he was wearing MS-13 gang colors.
"I'll be candid, what he said to us was, Donald Trump doesn't want you guys here and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get you deported."
Correction: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the relationship between Segovia Pineda and a female associate.
Nicole Fuller is Newsday's senior criminal justice reporter. She began working at Newsday in 2012 and previously covered local government.
