A federal grand jury handed up a 19-count indictment against four alleged members of a notorious and violent Hispanic gang, including two men who police say shot a woman in the face because she refused to let them move into her home.
Charged are William Cordova, 23, Jose Gutierrez, 19, William Osorio-Rivas, 20, and Melvin Sorto, 21. The defendants face life in prison without the possibility of parole. They are also eligible for the death penalty.
“Gang violence and all of its accompanying destructive behavior is an ill that will not be tolerated in our nation’s capital,” said U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor. “This indictment serves as a wake-up call to those who join gangs and engage in violent criminal conduct that there are serious consequences for such activity.”
The indictment alleges that Cordova, Gutierrez, Osorio-Rivas and Sorto were members and associates of a criminal organization known as La Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13. The four were responsible for a string of violence in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia from 2006 and 2007.
Members of the gang meet in cliques in the D.C. area and pay dues that are used to assist MS-13 members in gang activities around the U.S. and El Salvador, according to charging documents. The defendants conspired to spread their power and kill rival gang members, including the Latin Criminals, the 14th Street gang, and MOB.
All four were charged with the murder of Edwin Ventura and the shooting of Nelson Maldonado, in April 2007 in the 2900 block of Sherman Avenue in Northwest D.C.
Police say that last summer Cordova and Guiterrez shot a local mother twice in the head while she waited at a bus stop outside an elementary school. The shooting occurred after the woman tried to kick Cordova, Gutierrez and her 18-year-old son out of her house when she learned they were in a gang. The woman barely survived.
U.S. Marshals last summer captured Gutierrez in New York, and Cordova in Greensboro, N.C. Osorio-Rivas will have to be extradited back to the U.S. Sorto was arrested Wednesday in D.C.
