The ruthless leader of a Long Island MS-13 crew admitted Wednesday that he was responsible for eight brutal murders — including the baseball bat beating deaths of two local high school girls.
Alexi Saenz, 29, the reputed former head of the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside clique, admitted as part of a plea deal that he ordered or carried out violent slayings, which included the deaths of Nisa Mickens, 15, and her 16-year-old friend, Kayla Cuevas, who were beaten and hacked to death in 2016.
“To say that Alexi Saenz’s hands are drenched in blood does not begin to describe the multiple killings and extreme mayhem he personally directed and committed in the span of one year in Suffolk County,” US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Pearce said in a statement.
Saenz and his brother Jairo, another MS-13 thug, were among 13 members of the notorious gang indicted by the feds in 2017 on racketeering, conspiracy and murder charges.
Alexi Saenz, also known as “Blatsy” and “Plaky,” admitted to the killings as part of a plea deal on racketeering and weapons charges in federal court in Central Islip — agreeing to up to 70 years in prison.
However, prosecutors said in court that they retain the right to pull the agreement on Alexi Saenz before his sentencing if his brother doesn’t also agree to a plea deal.
“His brother is not prepared to plead guilty today,” Assistant US Attorney Paul Scotti said in court. “To protect the interests of the government, if his brother does not plead we reserve the right to withdraw the plea agreement. We are attempting to enter a global plea.”
Among the gang’s most startling accusations is the killing of the teen girls.
The two Brentwood High Schoolers were attacked on the evening of Sept. 13, 2016, following several disputes over social media between Kayla and various MS-13 members and associates.
That animosity boiled over into a fight at Brentwood High School, leading the gang to “put a ‘greenlight’ on Cuevas; that is they authorized her to be killed,” according to the feds.
In Alexi Saenz’s allocution in court — which was read by his attorney as he does not speak English — the gangster said he gave the order okaying the hit on the teen girls but was not present.
“I just want it done,” Mickens’ mom, Elizabeth Alvarado, said outside the courtroom Wednesday.
“They need to pay for what they did,” she said through tears. “And the other families, we cannot move forward. We’re always going to be in this situation. It’s never going to stop. We can’t even go to the stores without being recognized. And it’s 8 years later.”
In addition to the two high schoolers, the Saenz brothers were charged in connection to the Long Island killings of Michael Johnson, Oscar Acosta, Javier Castillo, Dewann Stacks and Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, according to the federal indictment.
Johnson’s father on Wednesday scoffed at Saenz’s claim that his slain son was a rival gang member.
“That was my son,” George Johnson said outside the courtroom. “He had bipolar disorder. He was handicapped. So I did everything humanly possible not to get up and walk out of that courtroom because that right there was a lie.”
The vicious transnational gang has left dozens of mutilated bodies buried in shallow graves across Long Island after establishing a footprint there in recent years.
On Wednesday, Acting Suffolk County Police Commissioner Robert Waring called the gang’s crimes on his turf “senseless and barbaric.”
“My hope is that this guilty plea will give the victims’ families some closure while also demonstrating our commitment to dismantling these criminal enterprises,” Waring said in a statement.
