A member of the MS-13 gang who fled the United States following the quadruple murder of four individuals lured to a New York park under the premise of smoking pot pleaded guilty this week to racketeering charges in the scheme, which arose from gang disrespect on social media.
Edwin Rodriguez, 24, also known as “Manicomio,” has filed a plea to federal charges in the deaths of Justin Llivicura, Michael Lopez, Jorge Tigre, and Jefferson Villalobos. Rodriguez is facing up to life in jail. The court scheduled his sentence for September 18.
“He’s relieved to put this behind him in terms of the plea, and he’s now ready to move on to the next phase of the proceeding and the next phase of his life,” Rodriguez’s defense attorney, Glenn Obedin, told Newsday.
According to officials, MS-13 members led five men to a park on April 11, 2017, with the intention of smoking marijuana. Once there, Rodriquez and a dozen other MS-13 gang members surrounded and attacked the victims, equipped with machetes, knives, an axe, and wooden clubs. One escaped.
The following evening, authorities discovered the chopped, stabbed, and bludgeoned remains of the four victims. El Salvador detained Rodriguez and will extradite him to the United States in 2022.
The summer following the quadruple murder, then-President Donald Trump paid a visit to Long Island and spoke about the gang.
“Since January ’16—tthink of this—MMS-13 gang members have brutally murdered 17 beautiful, young lives in this area on Long Island alone,” he went on to say. “They butcher the small girls.” They kidnap, extort, rape, and rob. They prey on children. They should not be here. They stomp on their victims. They beat them with clubs. They cut them with machetes and stabbed them with knives. They have turned serene parks and attractive, quiet neighborhoods into blood-soaked killing fields. “They are animals.”
On March 16, 2018, authorities initially charged Rodriguez, who was 17 at the time of the murders, as a juvenile. In 2019, El Salvador detained him, and in 2022, he returned to the United States. As part of his guilty plea, Rodriguez consented to the conversion to adult status.
According to authorities, MS-13 is Long Island’s most violent criminal gang. Officials in the Eastern District of New York have convicted hundreds of MS-13 members of federal felonies since 2003.
