A wannabe gangster who savagely killed a Queens teenager to achieve entry into MS-13 has been sentenced to 45 years in jail.
Juan Amaya-Ramirez was simply 20 in 2018 when he and others beat, stabbed and choked 17-year-old Andy Peralta in Kissena Park in Flushing, mistakenly pondering he was in a rival gang and that killing him would earn them a spot MS-13’s ranks.
The killer, identified by the sinister nickname “Cadaver,” then took a selfie flashing MS-13 gang indicators over Peralta’s mangled and lifeless physique and regularly bragged in regards to the homicide afterwards, prosecutors mentioned.
Choose Lashann DeArcy Corridor blasted Amaya-Ramirez’s lawyer at Tuesday’s sentencing listening to in Brooklyn for making an attempt to downplay his consumer’s involvement within the brutal homicide, which he pleaded responsible to final 12 months.
The legal professional, Richard Palma, had argued that Amaya-Ramirez was “the least culpable of his codefendants” and known as his makes an attempt at choking Peralta “half-hearted,” in line with a sentencing request for filed final month.
“It’s mind-blowing to this court docket that you might argue that, when that younger man died of strangulation, and your consumer strangled him,” Brooklyn Federal Court docket Choose Lashann DeArcy Corridor mentioned Tuesday, the New York Day by day Information reported.
“He put his fingers round his throat, and he strangled him to loss of life,” she added — earlier than handing Amaya-Ramirez a 45-year sentence, way over the 30 years his protection had sought.
Amaya-Ramirez, now 28, used his then-17-year-old girlfriend, Leyla Carranza, to lure Peralta to the park with the pretend promise of a romantic encounter.
As a substitute, he and co-defendants Oscar Flores-Mejia and Juan Lazo Villa ambushed Peralta, brutally beating him as Amayra-Ramirez choked him, prosecutors mentioned of their sentencing memorandum.
As {the teenager} screamed together with his remaining breaths, Flores-Mejia shoved grime in his mouth, stabbed him within the again with a kitchen knife and slashed off his chest a crown tattoo that they mistakenly thought was an emblem of a rival gang.
They then took a selfie flashing MS-13 gang indicators over Peralta’s bloodied and lifeless physique earlier than leaving him face-down within the mud.
His physique was later found by a hiker.
“Of all of the conspirators, [Amaya-Ramirez] appeared to take the best pleasure within the homicide, repeatedly bragging in regards to the killing to MS-13 members he met and exhibiting off the {photograph} of Peralta’s mutilated physique that he stored on his telephone as a trophy,” prosecutors mentioned.
“He used the homicide to advance himself inside MS-13, and to at the present time he has accomplished nothing to maneuver away from the gang.”
Amaya Ramirez and Flores-Mejiua pleaded responsible to the homicide in September 2024. Flores-Mejiia is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday.
Carranza is at present serving a 22-year sentence for her function within the killing.
