Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON (WMAL) – MS-13 member Carlos Brizuela, 29, was sentenced Friday to 32 years in federal prison followed by five years of supervised release after he pleaded guilty to participating in a violent racketeering conspiracy in Maryland that included two murders, two attempted murders and a kidnapping. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland said Brizuela is one of 29 MS-13 members charged with participating in the conspiracy.
“Brizuela and his fellow MS-13 members committed a horrifying series of violent acts, ravaging communities throughout Maryland,” said U.S. Attorney Robert Hur in a press release.
The crimes started in April of 2015 when Brizuela helped give the green light for other gang members to kill a man they thought was a rival gang member. Brizuela helped arrange the murder after gang members saw the man at a restaurant in Frederick. MS-13 members lured the victim into a wooded area in Frederick where they hit him in the head with a rock before killing him with a machete and a knife according to Hur’s office. Police found his body buried in the woods where he was killed.
In May of 2015, Brizuela admitted he and other gang members kidnapped a man at gunpoint and planned to kill him because he had stopped making his required extortion payments to the gang. They let that man live after he agreed to pay up immediately.
In August of 2015, Brizuela gave gang members the go ahead to murder another man they thought was in a rival gang. Gang members broke into the apartment the man lived in with his girlfriend and waited for them to come home. When they did, the man was attacked with machetes and knives, and the woman was restrained and assaulted. The two survived, but the male victim’s hands were almost cut off. He can’t use one of his hands at all and has limited use of the other.
Later in August of 2015, Brizuela and other gang members stabbed a man to death after he ignored a warning to stop wearing the gang’s signature shoe the Nike Cortez. He admitted he and other gang members saw the victim in a Dunkin Donuts in Wheaton wearing Nike Cortez sneakers. The gang’s rules only allow MS-13 members to wear those shoes. The victim spit on one of the gang members as they walked by him, prompting that gang member to punch the victim. The victim then threw beer on Brizuela and ran away. Brizuela and another gang member chased the victim and stabbed him to death.
“The violence and fear MS-13 inflicts upon the community is unacceptable,” said John Eisert, special agent in charge for the Baltimore office of Homeland Security Investigations.
Eisert said in a press release his office will continue to work with other law enforcement agencies to dismantle MS-13.
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