Thread: MS-13 gang member is sentenced

http://www.newsday.com

MS-13 gang member is sentenced

BY ROBERT KESSLER
STAFF WRITER

December 9, 2005, 1:26 PM EST

A Freeport member of the MS-13 street gang was sentenced to 63 years in prison, in the first national case that found a street gang to be a racketeering enterprise.

David Vasquez, 26, had been convicted of being involved in three shootings of men who he thought belonged to rival gangs. Only one was, and all survived.

Defense lawyer Charles Hochbaum of Brooklyn said he plans to appeal on grounds that the gang was not a business covered by federal racketeering statutes. Instead, he said, it is a sort of self-defense association-- "although, obviously, their definition of protection...went a lot further than others believe it should have."

Hochbaum argued that under state law, Vasquez would have gotten 10 years for assault.

Federal prosecutor Richard Donoghue asked for a stiff sentence "that would make every gang member think twice before picking up a gun." But Judge Leonard Wexler declined to give Vasquez an additonal 50 years on the government's novel, yet untested legal theory, that the bullets used in shooting count as explosive devices. Vasquez will be about 89 years old when he gets out.

Oh goody! We get to support another thug for the rest of his life because we were too stupid to close our borders before he got here.