On the streets, they called violent MS-13 gang member Leniz Escobar “Little Devil.”
But in a Long Island courtroom, they called the sinister young woman a murderer.
Escobar, 24, was convicted in 2022 of four counts of murder in aid of racketeering and one count of racketeering in connection with the macabre machete slayings of four young men hacked to death in a Long Island park.
On Wednesday, she was sentenced to 50 years in prison for luring the victims to their death in April 2017 with the promise of smoking marijuana.
U.S. Judge Joseph Bianco scolded Escobar during sentencing saying she participated in the executions “willingly and enthusiastically” and was one of the massacre’s masterminds.
In court, Escobar was repentant.
Through her tears she told the court: “All I can do is hurt. Every breath reminds me that they are not here and their families are in pain. If I could trade places with them and take away that pain, I would.”
Just 17 at the time of the murders, Escobar convinced MS-13 to slaughter the quartet— Miguel Lopez, 20, Justin Llivicura, 16, and Jefferson Villalobos and Jose Tigre, both 18 — for mocking the gang.
“Little Devil” felt “personally offended” that at least one of the victims had worn items she thought were MS-13 regalia —even though he wasn’t a member.
After she lured the victims to their deaths, Escobar bragged about her role. She told the others to destroy evidence and say nothing to cops.
One witness told her trial she smiled and licked the victims’ blood off her lips as they were being murdered.
“She was one of the most culpable people,” ADA Morgan Farrell said at Escobar’s sentencing. “Without her, these murders would not have occurred.”
Tigre’s 17-year-old brother, Jason, said his older brother was looking forward to going to college before he was murdered.
“Now I’m all alone and I’m trying to be strong for him,” he said through tears. “This never should have happened, but it did because she did it. He should still be here.”
Prosecutors wanted her to receive a 65-year sentence partly because of her continued ties to MS-13 after her arrest. They said she orchestrated the beatdown of a female associate for breaking the gang’s code.
One family said she deserved the death penalty.
“She does not deserve 50 or 60 years in prison. She deserves the death penalty,” Tigre’s mother, Bertha Ullaguari, said in Spanish through a translator.
Her legal eagles asked for 32 years in the slammer, noting she was a juvenile at the time of the killings. Defence lawyer Jesse Siegel said his client had survived years of violence, sexual abuse, exploitation and human trafficking.
“From the time of her birth until April 2017, she had lived a horrible, terrible life,” Siegel said. “The best years of her life have been the last seven years in custody.”
@HunterTOSun