Amilcar Gomez, a leader of a Queens chapter of the international street gang La Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as “MS-13,” was sentenced today to life imprisonment for racketeering conspiracy, including the predicate acts of murder and attempted murder; murder in-aid-of-racketeering; and using a firearm in connection with a crime of violence. A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Gomez on April 3, 2009, following a one-week trial before Senior United States District Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr.

The sentence was announced by Benton J. Campbell, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

As established during the trial, Gomez was the leader of the Jamaica, New York chapter of MS-13 and engaged in a series of violent crimes in Jamaica, New York, including murder, attempted murder, and robbery. Gomez was convicted of the gang-related murder of Pedro Martinez on March 1, 2003, on 149th Street in Jamaica, Queens. The government’s evidence established that Gomez and two other MS-13 gang members stabbed Pedro Martinez to death, and that fellow MS-13 gang members stabbed and killed Martinez’s brother, Eduardo Leason, moments earlier. Gomez was also convicted of the gang-related attempted murder of a teenager on September 15, 2001, near P.S. 217 Junior High School, also in Jamaica, Queens.

Mr. Campbell extended his grateful appreciation to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, the New York City Police Department, and the New York City Department of Probation for their assistance in this case.

MS-13 is the largest street gang in the Eastern District of New York, which encompasses Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island. MS-13 engages in systematic criminal activity, including murder, robbery, narcotics trafficking, and extortion. Over the past five years, joint investigations by the United States Attorney’s Office, ICE, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the NYPD have solved multiple murders committed by MS-13 members on Long Island and in New York City, and resulted in felony convictions of more than a dozen MS-13 leaders and 120 MS-13 soldiers.

The government’s case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Jason Jones, Carter Burwell and Marshall Miller.

The Defendant:

AMILCAR GOMEZ
Age: 26

---