Alexi Saenz pleaded guilty last year for his role in ordering and approving the killings as well as other crimes during a rash of bloody violence that prompted President Donald Trump to make several visits to Long Island and call for the death penalty for Saenz and other gang members during his first term in the White House.
Saenz’s lawyers are seeking a sentence of 45 years behind bars, but prosecutors want the judge to impose the maximum sentence of 70 years.
Prosecutors, who previously withdrew their intent to seek the death penalty, say Saenz deserves to live out his days in prison for his “senseless” and “sadistic” crimes.
“The eight victims who lost their lives did nothing to deserve what the MS-13 did to them,” they wrote in legal filings ahead of Wednesday’s hearing. “The defendant and the others killed them in service of the gang without remorse or any regard for them as human beings.”
But Saenz's lawyers have argued for leniency, saying in their own legal filings that the now-30-year-old is remorseful and “on a journey of redemption” while incarcerated.
Prosecutors, however, counter that Saenz has remained “firmly entrenched” in MS-13 while in a federal lockup in Brooklyn for the past eight years.
They cited photos of him posing with other gang members behind bars and displaying gang signs and gang paraphernalia. They also say Saenz has been disciplined for assaulting other inmates, refusing staff orders and possessing sharpened metal shanks, cellphones and other contraband.
Among the killings Saenz oversaw were the deaths of Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, lifelong friends and classmates at Brentwood High School who were slain with a machete and a baseball bat.
Other victims included Javier Castillo, 15, of Central Islip, who was befriended by gang members only to be cut down with a machete in an isolated marsh.
Another victim, Oscar Acosta, 19, was found dead in a wooded area near railroad tracks nearly five months after he left his Brentwood home to play soccer.
