A member of a Los Angeles-based clique of a transnational street gang with roots in Latin America was found guilty Wednesday of murdering a man suspected of cooperating with law enforcement.
Mario Flores Vasquez, 30, was convicted by a jury of one count of violent crimes in aid of racketeering-murder at the conclusion of a seven-day trial in Los Angeles federal court.
The jury heard that Flores Vasquez drove one of two cars to the April 2017 murder, transporting victim German Berrios to the Angeles National Forest where he and various co-defendants killed the man. Flores Vasquez participated by picking up a large rock or cement block and smashing Berrios’ head, according to federal prosecutors.
Berrios was killed because he had fled El Salvador without permission from the leader of his clique, which suspected him of cooperating with law enforcement, court papers show.
Evidence showed that one of the gang used the Facebook account of a teenage girl to lure Berrios to the Angeles National Forest.
After Berrios was struck by rocks, “co-conspirators then repeatedly stabbed (him) with a knife,” according to a prosecution trial memo filed in court.
After he was dead, several members of the group removed necklaces Berrios was wearing, took off his clothes, and poured alcohol over him to erase their fingerprints, the memo stated.
Four other members of the gang were found guilty in June in downtown Los Angeles of murdering Berrios and two others at various times in the Angeles National Forest.
Flores Vasquez faces a potential life term in federal prison when sentenced Nov. 10 by U.S. District Judge Stanley Blumenfeld Jr., according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Federal prosecutors said they’ve won 30 convictions in the case against the gang so far.
Formed in the mid-1980s in Los Angeles, the gang has a presence in at least 10 states and several countries abroad. The epicenter of one of the organization’s largest cliques, prosecutors said, is in the San Fernando Valley, where El Salvadoran gang members joined with others to carry out the crimes detailed in the indictment.
A two-year investigation by the Los Angeles Metropolitan Task Force on Violent Gangs, which includes the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department led to arrests in the case.
Just three of 22 defendants originally named in the first indictment seven years ago were then over the age of 24, prosecutors said, while 16 of those defendants are eligible for the federal death penalty should the Justice Department opt to seek it.
Flores Vasquez was 21 when the Berrios murder took place.
Court documents say young associates of the clique who strived to become full-fledged members of the gang were required to kill a rival or other adversary to gain initiation.