Three MS-13 associates plead guilty to roles in revenge killing of girl, 15
MANASSAS, Va. - Three associates of the MS-13 street gang have pleaded guilty to their roles in the revenge killing of a 15-year-old girl.
The pleas Tuesday are the first convictions in the related killings of Damaris Reyes Rivas, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, and 21-year-old Christian Sosa Rivas of Fairfax City.
The Washington Post reports that Cindy Blanco Hernandez, 19; Aldair J. Miranda Carcamo, 18; Emerson Fugon Lopez, 17, entered pleas to abduction and, in two cases, gang participation, as part of deals with prosecutors. They reportedly face up to 20 or 30 years in prison when they are sentenced May 11. According to the paper, the charges are part of deals with prosecutors in the girl's death and all three are expected to be witnesses in the upcoming trials of three other people charged directly with her killing.
An FBI agent testified during a preliminary hearing this summer that she was killed because gang members believed she had lured Sosa Rivas to his death weeks earlier.
The Post reported this spring that Damaris had run away from home in December 2016 and become involved with the gang. According to testimony during a May court hearing Venus Romero Iraheta, one of the people charged in Damaris's death, stabbed the teen 13 times after she was allegedly lured to a park in the snow by an 18-year-old named Jose Castillo Rivas, who is also charged in the case.
