{"id":478963,"date":"2021-05-06T16:50:40","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T20:50:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=478963"},"modified":"2021-05-06T16:50:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-06T20:50:41","slug":"ms-13-member-pleads-guilty-to-brutal-murder-in-maryland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ms-13-member-pleads-guilty-to-brutal-murder-in-maryland\/","title":{"rendered":"MS-13 Member Pleads Guilty To Brutal Murder in Maryland"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fms-13-member-pleads-guilty-to-brutal-murder-in-maryland%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=478963&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/MS-13.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>A drug dealer and MS-13 member pleaded guilty in a Maryland federal court on Thursday to charges stemming from the brutal murder of a rival gangster just outside Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n<p>Moises Alexis Reyes-Canales, known to fellow gang members as &#8220;Sicopita,&#8221; admitted to his involvement with the 2016 stabbing death of Jose Hernandez-Portillo in a Maryland park, as well as MS-13\u2019s broader criminal enterprise, which has a strong presence in the capital region.<\/p>\n<p>Even as leaders of the Biden Justice Department publicly promise a break with Trump-era policies, Thursday\u2019s plea is a sign some Trump-era objectives will remain in place. In 2017, former attorney general Jeff Sessions directed the elite organized crime unit that investigated Reyes-Canales\u2019s case to make MS-13 a top priority. That directive came after former president Donald Trump signed an executive order creating a whole-of-government approach to &#8220;destroy&#8221; the transnational criminal syndicate.<\/p>\n<p>According to the plea agreement, Reyes-Canales and several others lured Hernandez-Portillo to Quiet Waters Park in Maryland in March 2016. Members of the gang struck Hernandez-Portillo with &#8220;a branch or stick,&#8221; then stabbed him repeatedly. He died on the scene and was buried in a shallow grave.<\/p>\n<p>Apart from the 2016 murder, Reyes-Canales admitted to plotting and attempting to murder two other individuals thought to be rival gang members. The defendant and several other associates ambushed the pair in October 2016 on a street near Quiet Waters Park with firearms and machetes. At one point during the ambush, one of Reyes-Canales\u2019s confidants commandeered a car and tried to run the victims over. The victims were transported to the University of Maryland\u2019s Shock Trauma Center with grisly, life-threatening injuries. Both survived.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The violence perpetrated by Reyes-Canales and his fellow MS-13 members was brutal and tragic and is totally unacceptable,&#8221; said acting U.S. attorney Jonathan Lenzner. &#8220;We need the continued help of members of our communities in order to carry on our work against MS-13.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Reyes-Canales also admitted that he and three other associates sold marijuana throughout the region, the proceeds of which were used to buy narcotics, guns, and support other MS-13 members in the United States and El Salvador.<\/p>\n<p>Though MS-13 has an international presence, it operates via loosely connected local affiliates called &#8220;cliques.&#8221; The cliques regularly consult with one another to share resources, information, and advice. Court papers show Reyes-Canales is a member of the Hempstead clique, one of at least nine cliques at work in Maryland. Reyes-Canales received approval to murder Hernandez-Portillo from gang leaders, the plea agreement shows.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Incarcerated clique leaders based in El Salvador regularly communicated and directed orders to Maryland-based cliques through phones smuggled into Salvadoran prisons,&#8221; prosecutors wrote in court documents.<\/p>\n<p>In general, the cliques raise revenue through extortion of legitimate businesses or &#8220;taxes&#8221; on illegitimate operators on their turf, such as drug dealers and brothels. For example, prosecutors accused Reyes-Canales of assaulting a marijuana dealer with a blunt object because he wasn\u2019t kicking a portion of his proceeds to the clique.<\/p>\n<p>The two charges Reyes-Canales pleaded guilty to are RICO conspiracy and use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. The maximum penalties for both charges is life imprisonment, though he will likely receive a lesser sentence as a result of the plea.<\/p>\n<p>The plea deal came less than three weeks before Reyes-Canales\u2019s trial was set to begin. Motions to exclude evidence were due by May 14, with the trial scheduled to begin on May 24.<\/p>\n<p>There are about 10,000 people associated with MS-13 in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>The case is <em>U.S.<\/em> v. <em>Reyes-Canales<\/em> in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A drug dealer and MS-13 member pleaded guilty in a Maryland federal court on Thursday to charges stemming from the brutal murder of a rival gangster just outside Washington, D.C. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2277488,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/MS-13.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"MS-13 Member Pleads Guilty To Brutal Murder in Maryland","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-478963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/MS-13.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"MS-13 Member Pleads Guilty To Brutal Murder in Maryland","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}