Two alleged MS-13 gang members charged with gruesome slaying of Roosevelt teen

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Two alleged MS-13 members on Thursday were charged with the deaths of victims found buried in densely wooded areas on Nassau County’s South Shore.

Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced Jose Daniel Lopez, 19, was arraigned on murder in the second-degree charges of participating in the death of 19-year-old Josue Amaya Lenor, who was lured near the Roosevelt-Baldwin border and hacked to death with machetes.

Lopez pled not guilty and is due back in court on Sept. 25. If convicted he faces up to 25 years to life in prison. Lopez is an alleged member of the Hollywood Clique, one of the two “cliques,” or semi-independent chapters of MS-13, that operate on Long Island — “Hollywood” and “The Sailors.”

Hours later, the Nassau County Police Department announced the arrest of 20-year-old Kevin G. Lopez-Morales, who is the fifth person to be charged with the death of 16-year-old Angel Soler, from Roosevelt. Also charged with second-degree murder, in that case, are David Sosa Guevara, 26, from Wyandanch, Josue, Figueroa-Velasquez, 18, from Freeport, and Victor Lopez, 29, from Roosevelt. Soler’s body was found in the woods adjacent to the Southern State Parkway in a residential area.

Like Amaya Lenor, Soler went into the woods with the alleged MS-13 members and was attacked with machetes last July.

Court records show Lopez-Morales is also being charged in connection with a murder that occurred on Sept. 4, 2016 — the same day Amaya Lenor was killed. He’s scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 7 at First District Court in Hempstead.

Police say six men brought Amaya Lenor into the woods with the promise to smoke marijuana before they hacked him to death. Because of Lopez’s arrest in June police said police said they had more evidence of alleged gang member’s affiliation with Amaya Lenor’s death.

Nassau County police Detective Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said that Amaya Lenor was a known associate of the gang, but after transferring to Roosevelt High School in November 2015 and making new friends, the gang identified him as “chivalo” or enemies of the gang. Before his death, he was named an enemy of MS-13 and marked for death. Leonor Amaya, had been friends and classmates Soler, 16, from Roosevelt, and Kerin Pineda, 20, from Freeport, whose bodies were found in October 2017.