The founder of MS-13 in Massachusetts, Carlos Geovanni Martinez-Aguilar, was sentenced on Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Boston for illegally reentering the United States after being deported.
Martinez-Aguilar, 38 of Mesquite, Texas was sentenced to three years in prison and two years of supervised release.
Prior to his initial deportation, Martinez-Aguilar was a leader of the MS-13 gang in the North Shore area. He was well known by fellow gang members and local law enforcement as the founder of MS-13 in Massachusetts.
Martinez Aguilar was born in El Salvador and illegally entered the U.S. in 1995. In September 2002, he was convicted of unarmed robbery and deported from the U.S. back to El Salvador in July 2003.
In 2005, federal law enforcement learned that he had returned to the U.S, and was arrested using a false name in Lawrence for assault with a dangerous weapon, making threats, giving a false name to police and armed robbery. He posted bail before the police learned his true identity, and he later defaulted on the charges and had a warrant issued for his arrest as a fugitive.
Federal agents continued to track him, and he was finally arrested in Dallas, Texas on Septembre 23, 2015.
In April 2013, he pleaded guilty to unlawful-re-entry of a deported alien.
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During Tuesday's hearing United States District Court Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton referred to MS-13 as a deadly and violent gang and cited the need to protect the public as a basis for his sentence of incarceration.
MS-13 is a transnational street gang, that originated in El Salvador, and it is notorious for using extreme violence, including violence against their rival gangs.