23-05-2025
Leader of Somerville MS-13 ‘clique' pleads guilty to 2010 murder
A local leader in the transnational MS-13 gang, who is already serving a lengthy prison sentence, pleaded guilty on Thursday to killing a man in Chelsea in 2010, federal prosecutors announced.
Jose Vasquez, 31, pleaded guilty to a single count of violent crime in aid of racketeering, U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley said in a statement. He will be sentenced on June 30. Vazquez is already serving a 212-month (17 years and 8 months) prison sentence for racketeering conspiracy, or RICO, handed down in 2018.
At around 7:10 p.m. on Dec. 18, 2010, police responded to a 911 call under the Fifth Street on-ramp to Route 1 in Chelsea. There, they found a 28-year-old man with about 10 stab wounds to his head, back and chest. The man was brought to a hospital, where he died of his wounds, Foley's office said.
A recent reexamination of evidence collected in the investigation of the man's death pointed to members of MS-13, including Vasquez, Foley's office said.
He was a member and local leader of the Trece Locos Salvatrucha, or TLS, clique of MS-13 operating in Somerville. Prosecutors say he 'personally participated in racketeering activity and acts of violence' on behalf of the gang.
In the week leading up to the killing, Vasquez and other members of the gang conspired to murder the man because they believed he was a member of a rival gang, Foley's office said.
On the day of the murder, Vasquez and others picked up the man at a McDonald's in Allston and drove him to a secluded area in Chelsea under the highway. There, an MS-13 member hit him in the head with a rock and another stabbed him with a machete. Vasquez stabbed the man with a knife — his palm print was identified on the handle of a kitchen knife found at the scene. The man's blood was also found on the knife, Foley's office said.
Investigators obtained a recording of an MS-13 meeting from roughly six weeks after the murder, on Jan. 27, 2011, where one gang member acknowledges his participation in the crime and is disciplined for leaving Massachusetts after the killing without the gang's permission. Vasquez was identified as being present, prosecutors say.
The charge of violent crime in aid of racketeering carries a sentence of up to life in prison.
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Read the original article on MassLive.
