MS-13 Gang Member Gets 27 Years For Role In Long Island Teen's Murder: Feds

CENTRAL ISLIP, NY — An MS-13 member was sentenced to nearly 30 years in federal prison for his part in the murder of a Brentwood teen, who federal prosecutors say, had been targeted for death due to his association with a rival gang.

Nelson Argueta-Quintanilla, 25, was sentenced by a district court judge to 327 months in prison for his role in the murder of Brentwood 19-year-old Oscar Acosta, whose body was found on the grounds of an abandoned psychiatric hospital near his home in 2016, prosecutors said.

The sentence also includes charges related to a later attempt to shoot rival gang members to death on nearby Lukens Avenue, according to prosecutors.

Argueta-Quintanilla, who goes by the name of “Mendigo," meaning "beggar" in Spanish, is a self-admitted member of the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside clique, prosecutors said.

He is formerly from the Brentwood-Central Islip area and pleaded guilty last year to racketeering, admitting in court to his role in Acosta's murder and the shooting on Lukens Avenue, as well as drug trafficking for the gang, according to prosecutors.

U.S. Attorney for Eastern District of New York Breon Peace called Argueta-Quintanilla's sentence "a fitting punishment for a brutal murder followed by another reckless shooting."

“This office and our law enforcement partners remain committed to holding violent actors, including gang members, accountable for the fear, destruction, and death they bring to our communities," he added.

Argueta-Quintanilla, along with other MS-13 members, "targeted Acosta for death" because he previously had associated with the gang, but changed his mind and later began associating with rivals in the 18th Street gang, prosecutors said.

In 2016, Argueta-Quintanilla, gathered in a wooded area near a school where they learned a fellow MS-13 member was meeting Acosta to smoke some pot, prosecutors said, adding that when Acosta arrived in the woods, Argueta-Quintanilla and the other gangsters repeatedly struck Acosta with a large tree branch, knocking him unconscious.

They called their leader who arrived with other gang members, and they decided to drive Acosta to a wooded area in Brentwood that was behind several warehouses and next to the grounds of an abandoned psychiatric hospital, prosecutors said.

Once they arrived, Acosta was carried — still alive — into the woods where Argueta-Quintanilla and three other MS-13 members took turns striking him with a machete, then covered him with dirt, and sped way, according to prosecutors.

Acosta was found when law enforcement was searching for another victim of an MS-13 slaying, prosecutors said.

Not too long after Acosta's killing, Argueta-Quintanilla went driving around Brentwood hunting for rival gang members to kill and ended up opening fire on a group, and one of the bullets struck the headboard of an elderly woman’s bed, according to prosecutors.

No one was injured in the shooting.