It’s ‘not a crime’ to be in MS-13, lawyer for accused Queens gang leader says at murder trial

It’s not a crime to be in MS-13, the lawyer for one of the bloodthirsty gang’s leaders said at the first day of his racketeering and murder trial in Brooklyn Federal Court.

“The crimes are horrible. The crimes all happened,” Melvi Amador-Rios’ attorney, Murray Singer, told jurors during his opening statement Monday. “The defense position is that he didn’t do these things. He wasn’t involved.”

Singer conceded that Amador-Rios is a member of the gang, but told the jury that would not be enough to convict him.

“Here’s the thing: It’s not a crime to be affiliated with MS-13. ... MS-13 is not a crime. Being a member of MS-13 is not a crime,” he said. “It’s not enough to prove that the crimes took place, and it’s not enough to prove that Melvi was part of the organization.”

Amador-Rios is accused of ordering the brutal murder and near decapitation of a low-level MS-13 member, 16-year-old Julio Vasquez, in a Queens park, as well as ordering the murder of another teenager, Luis Serrano, who was shot in the face and paralyzed. He also planned four armed robberies of Queens businesses, prosecutors allege.

“Don’t get lost in the emotion. My God, there’s going to be a lot of emotions,” Singer said. “Please, please, please, don’t get lost in that.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Raffaela Belizaire said, though, that every murder committed by the MS-13 “clique” in Queens went through Amador-Rios, who as leader was responsible for enforcing the gang’s rules. Those rules included killing rivals and turncoat MS-13 members whenever possible, and never talking to law enforcement.

“As the leader of the clique, the defendant issued a series of murder missions,” she said, adding that Vasquez was killed on May 16, 2017, because the teen could not bring himself to kill a friend at Amador-Rios’ command.

Vasquez was supposed to kill another teen who broke the rules by tipping off an MS-13 member who was marked for death for palling around with the rival 18th St. gang.

When Vasquez missed his deadline to commit the murder, two MS-13 gang members butchered him in Alley Pond Park, stabbing him 28 times in the back and six times in the chest, prosecutors allege.

“They nearly decapitated him,” Belizaire said, adding that the cuts were so vicious, they severed his carotid artery and left marks on his skull and the bones in his neck.

The jurors heard testimony from Serrano, who survived a murder attempt that prosecutors say Amador-Dios ordered.

The gaunt 22-year-old approached the stand in a motorized wheelchair, his long, scraggly hair pushed to one side under a black baseball cap.

Speaking through a Spanish interpreter, Serrano said he was hospitalized for about nine months after being shot in the face on Oct. 22, 2016. He said he needed four surgeries and still suffers nerve pain “24/7.”

Serrano told the jury that prior to the shooting, he spent his free time hanging out with two close friends, Geordi and Skinny, who turned out to be 18th St. gang members. He flashed gang signs with them and hung out with them exclusively but never joined their gang, he testified.

That friendship put a target on his back, and a man in a car started seeking him out, trying to lure him to remote areas.

“He befriended me. Supposedly, he was sent by that man [Amador-Rios], but I don’t know. He kept asking me to go to dark places. ... He would always offer things to me. He would offer me marijuana,” Serrano said. “I didn’t know anything about him.”

The day of the shooting, the mystery man picked up Serrano and a female friend in his car and dropped them off near 179th St. in Jamaica. After Serrano met with another female friend, the man called again to see where he was, and moments later, three attackers came out of nowhere to jump him.

“And I don’t remember after that,” he said.

The next thing Serrano knew, he was in a hospital bed.

Jurors also heard from a cooperating witness, Jose Gonzalez-Rivera, who testified about how he was given a beating by Amador-Rios and others when he joined the gang, and about how the leader put him to work selling marijuana.

When asked about the consequences he’d face for cooperating with the government, Gonzalez-Rivera glumly answered, “Certain death.”