MS-13 Member Pleads Guilty To 2 Nassau Murders

An MS-13 member from Hempstead pleaded guilty on Wednesday to two different murders that occurred in Nassau County in 2016 and 2017.

Edar Ventura, 21, also known as "Trauma" and "Despiadado," pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. He admitted to shooting and killing a 16-year-old on a Uniondale street in 2016, and hacking a 22-year-old man to death with a machete in 2017.

Ventura is due back in court on April 10, and is expected to be sentenced to 32 years to life in prison.

“Two young men were viciously murdered by this defendant so that he could gain status and climb the ranks of MS-13,” said Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas. “This street gang has terrorized our immigrant communities and is constantly plotting acts of violence against anyone perceived to be a rival.”

On Dec. 13, 2016, Ventura and Jeustin David Maldonado, both members of MS-13, were trying to kill a perceived enemy of the gang. The two rode bicycles on Fenimore Avenue in Uniondale, where they found their intended target sitting in a car.

Maldonado ordered the man out of the car, and Ventura pulled out a gun and fired at least three times, striking Alexon Moya, who was a bystander, in the head. Moya was taken to the hospital and died two days later. Singas said that Ventura was trying to kill the rival of the gang to gang status in MS-13.

Maldonado pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is awaiting sentencing.

Ventura's second murder occurred on Aug. 11, 2017. Carlos Rivas-Majano told a family member hew as on his way home from a deli in Uniondale, but never made it home. Rivas-Majano was another perceived enemy of MS-13. Rivas-Majano was lured into the woods near the Meadowbrook Parkway in Uniondale, where he was hacked and stabbed to death with machetes. His body was found on Aug. 29, 2018.

Four others, in addition to Ventura, were arrested for Rivas-Majano's murder and their cases are pending.

Ventura was arrested on Dec. 18, 2017 by the Nassau County Police Department.