Lengthy Island’s “Little Satan” smiled as MS-13 gang members hacked 4 males to dying with machetes — and even “licked the blood off her lips” through the bloodbath, prosecutors stated Wednesday in closing arguments at her homicide trial.
Leniz “Diablita” Escobar, 22, lured the lads to their deaths in a neighborhood park after convincing the notoriously vicious gang that the victims “had mocked them” through the use of MS-13 symbols, prosecutor Justina Geraci stated in federal courtroom in Central Islip.
“You heard [MS-13 gang member] David Gaitan-Rivera’s testimony,” Geraci advised the jury of the 2017 slayings. “He advised you the way one of many victims had reached for [Escobar] earlier than he was killed and his blood had gotten throughout her shirt.
“He advised you the way she licked the blood off her lips.”
One other witness, Escobar’s pal Keyli Gomez, had testified about “how she and the defendant had crouched down by the victims and watched as they have been killed. Not screaming or crying whereas the victims have been macheted to dying.
“And the way simply earlier than [victim] Michael Lopez was hacked to dying, how she smiled,” Geraci stated.
Escobar continued to smile and joke round together with her protection staff through the prosecutor’s chilling summation. She wore her hair in a ponytail and had vibrant chrome piercings protruding from her cheeks.
Prosecutors say Lopez, 20, and three buddies — Justin Llivicura, 16, Jorge Tigre, 18, and Jefferson Villalobos, 18 — have been executed by MS-13 after a number of of them posted photographs on-line throwing gang indicators, a feeble effort to draw women.
Escobar and Gomez allegedly lured them to the Central Islip park to smoke marijuana, as a mob of MS-13 gangsters waited to ambush them.
Solely one of many meant victims, Elmer Alexander Arteaga Ruiz, made it out alive by operating for his life — and lived to testify in opposition to Escobar.
“Alex was a poser and that’s why he was marked for dying,” Geraci stated of Ruiz. “He thought these things would entice women and it did — however not in the best way he had hoped.”
Others testifying within the trial included Escobar’s boyfriend, an MS-13 gang member, who stated his then-17-year-old girlfriend advised the gang “they have been being overrun by ‘chivales’ [rivals] they usually had no balls,” Geraci stated.
Prosecutors additionally introduced recorded cellphone calls Escobar had together with her boyfriend, calling them “devastating” to her declare that she was harmless.
“She was telling her boyfriend precisely what occurred,” Assistant US Lawyer Paul Scotti advised jurors. “She advised him she killed these 4 younger males and he or she was completely happy about it. She was completely happy.”
Escobar’s attorneys have claimed on the trial that she didn't know the victims could be attacked.
Throughout his closing argument, protection lawyer Jesse Siegel stated his consumer wasn’t an MS-13 member or affiliate — she solely dated one of many gangsters.
“Not each girlfriend is an affiliate,” Siegel advised jurors. “Her boyfriend was a homeboy.
“She was there. She actually didn’t forestall it from occurring,” he stated. “The problem is that if she knew one thing was going to occur.”
Siegel then stumbled, telling the jury, “you must discover her responsible, excuse me, you must discover her not responsible.”
Exterior the courthouse, Siegel stated the jury — which is because of begin deliberations Thursday morning — ought to ignore the claims of gang members who lower offers to testify in opposition to Escobar.
“The jury shouldn't depend on the witnesses that the federal government put ahead, that means these cooperating witnesses who're all extraordinarily dangerous people who find themselves testifying pursuant to cooperation agreements,” he stated.
“She had all the time needed to have her day in courtroom,” Siegel added. “I feel she’s glad that she’s had her day in courtroom. And he or she is nervous, however trying ahead to getting a verdict.”
Escobar additionally had defenders among the many viewers within the courtroom.
“She had a really tough life since she was very younger,” her cousin, Cindy Escobar, advised reporters exterior the courtroom. “[She] didn’t have a father. Didn’t have a mom. Didn’t have a secure childhood. So, we are able to see. You guys have a very completely different image.
“However we all know that God is together with her and God has her in her fingers.”
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