Federal authorities tossed an illegal immigrant former gang member into solitary confinement in a Virginia jail because his many tattoos led them to believe he would take a leadership role among other MS-13 inmates, court documents said.

Jose Noe Uria Hernandez’s attorney said in documents filed in Alexandria’s federal court that his 30-year-old client left the gang before he snuck into the United States from El Salvador in early 2003. Hernandez had been in the United States illegally before and was deported in 2002 after serving a one-year sentence for stealing cars in Fairfax County, where he had been running with MS-13.