A multi-year, multi-jurisdictional investigation into the activities of La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) has concluded with the sentencing of an 18th individual targeted in the investigation, which began with events happening in 2016. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this sentencing in a news release on July 18.
According to the DOJ, the defendants and their sentences are as follows: Jose Pineda-Caceres, 25, received 52 years and three months in prison; Jorge Flores, 31, was sentenced to life plus 65 years in prison; Kevin Tidwell, 30, received life plus 30 years in prison; Luis Colindres, 27, was sentenced to 55 years in prison; Gerson Serrano-Ramirez, 36, received 34 years in prison; Carlos Ochoa-Martinez, 34, was sentenced to 30 years in prison; Francisco Avila, 26, received 30 years in prison; Franklin Hernandez, 24, was sentenced to 28 years and eleven months in prison; Jason Sandoval, 38, received 20 years in prison; Oscar Delgado-Flores, 30, was sentenced to nineteen years and eight months in prison; Angel Daniel-Garcia, 38, received thirteen years and nine months in prison; Bryan Paredes, 27, was sentenced to ten years in prison; Jose Calderon, 24, received ten years in prison; Hector Venturas, 28, was sentenced to twelve years and seven months in prison; Juan Melendez, 25 received eight years in prison; Franklin Pineda-Caceres., 23., was sentenced to.seven years and six months in prison; Sergio.Alvarado Ochoa, 30, received two years and six months in prison; and Anabely Caceres, 44, received a time-served sentence of one year and one month.
Events began with the April 6, 2016 murder of an individual by Pineda-Caceres because he believed the victim was a member of a rival gang. On July 31, Pineda-Caceres and associates attacked a second victim suspected of being in a rival gang and his sister after seeing them in a nightclub; the younger sister was killed when Pineda-Cacere and his associates followed the second victim’s vehicle and shot into it.
Incidents stretched into late 2017. The final events occurred on September 24, 2017 when Luis Colindres and other MS-13 gang members spotted the fifteenth victim in this case believed to be a rival gang member in a South Nashville nightclub. They drove to his apartment complex. Upon arrival, gang members blocked his car in and shot him in the head and torso. One of the passengers was also shot multiple times to prevent him from speaking to law enforcement. That night, MS-13 members, including Flores and Colindres, lured a seventeenth victim to a secluded location to murder him for failing to pay a drug debt. They then drove with his body in the trunk to Cheatham County, Tennessee where they burned the body inside the car.
Throughout the investigation, MS-13 members committed armed carjackings near Nashville, Tennessee, according to the DOJ news release.
The DOJ is made up of forty separate but related organizations and was created in 1789. Its focus is protecting civil rights and upholding the rule of law, according to the DOJ website.
