MS-13 Member Pleads Guilty To Killing Victim With Machete: Feds

BRENTWOOD, NY — A member of the deadly MS-13 street gang pleaded guilty to the 2016 murder of Dewann Stacks, which involved machetes and baseball bat, in federal court Thursday, according to prosecutors.

Ever Flores, 29, also known as “Negro” and “Grone", a member of the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside (Sailors) clique of La Mara Salvatrucha, also known as the a transnational gang MS-13, pleaded guilty to racketeering charges relating to his participation in the murder of Stacks, federal officials said. He also plead guilty to a conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana, according to Joseph F. Bianco., acting United States attorney for the eastern district of New York.

According to prior court filings and Flores’s statements during the plea proceeding, Flores and other MS-13 co-conspirators drove around the streets of Central Islip and Brentwood on on October 13, 2016, hunting for rival gang members to attack and kill. They saw Stacks on American Boulevard, a residential street in Brentwood, and believed him to be a rival gang member, according to previous reports. Flores and another MS-13 member, both armed with machetes, attacked Stacks, hacking him to death, federal officials said. Another member hit Stacks with a baseball bat. Stacks sustained severe sharp and blunt force trauma to the face and head, leaving him nearly unrecognizable, prosecutors said.

“This case is a grim reminder of just how vicious MS-13 can be,” Suffolk County Police Department Acting Commissioner Stuart Cameron said. “This victim was sought out like prey and killed in an act of savagery illustrating the danger this street gang poses."

Stacks was one of at least was one of at least 17 murdered by MS-13 between January 2016 and July 2017, according to The New York Times. The gang has existed on Long Island for more than two decades and has roots in Los Angeles and Central America. Then-President Donald Trump traveled to Long Island in recent years to discuss the scourge gangs brought to the area. "They have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful, quiet neighborhoods into blood-stained killing fields," he said.