A gang member has pleaded guilty to driving two other gang members to Sterling Park, where one of the men allegedly shot a pregnant woman and her boyfriend.
Jose Gordillo Portocarrero became a full member of MS-13 as a teenager in 2004 when he joined the gang’s prominent Northern Virginia sect, the Western Locos Salvatrucha, he admitted in Alexandria’s federal court Tuesday.
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On Sept. 13, 2008, Portocarrero drove Edgar Benitez Hernandez to Sterling Park in search of 18th Street gang members — MS-13’s biggest rival — to attack, court documents said. They drove around for a few hours until they spotted a man whom they believed was in 18th Street standing outside a town house on North Argonne Avenue with a woman.
Hernandez got out of the car and moments later Portocarrero told authorities he heard two or three gunshots, Portocarrero’s guilty plea said. He then picked up Hernandez and they drove off.
The pregnant woman was hit in the chest and the man with her was shot in the stomach and chest, authorities said. They recovered from their wounds and the baby survived.
On Tuesday, Portocarrero pleaded guilty to being a gang member involved an attempted murder.
Hernandez has not been charged in that shooting, but in January he was charged with assault with an deadly weapon in connection with a gang-inspired drive-by shooting that left a 14-year-old boy in Sterling with a bullet wound in his foot.
According to charging documents, two MS-13 members were chased from a McDonald’s restaurant on Elden Street in Herndon by a group of 18th Street members in the evening of Aug. 10, 2008. As they fled, one of the MS-13 members called Hernandez and he and other suspected gang members picked him up in a car belonging to gang member’s mother.
When they spotted an 18th Street member standing with a small group of people on Saber Lane, authorities say Hernandez pulled out a .38-caliber revolver and opened fire, striking the 14-year-old in the foot.
An informant identified Hernandez as the leader of the Western Locos Salvatrucha clique, court documents said. The FBI says it has identified more than 150 member of the clique in recent years, although many of those are in prison or have been deported.
