A Freeport MS-13 member who was 16 years old when he participated in two 2016 machete murders was sentenced Tuesday to 42 years in federal prison, prosecutors said.
Kevin Cuevas Del Cid, 26, was sentenced July 7 in federal court in Central Islip for his role in the killings of Kerin Pineda, 20, and Javier Castillo, 15. His sentence also covers a conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana.
U.S. District Judge Joan M. Azrack imposed the sentence.
Del Cid, who used several aliases, including “Creeper,” belonged to the Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside clique of MS-13, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Federal prosecutors said Del Cid helped plan Pineda’s murder by creating a fake Facebook profile depicting a young woman and using it to communicate with him.
On May 21, 2016, Pineda went to a secluded wooded area near the Merrick-Freeport border believing he was meeting the woman from the Facebook account.
Instead, prosecutors said, Del Cid and other MS-13 members surrounded him and took turns attacking him with machetes.
Pineda’s body was buried in a hole that had been dug the previous day in preparation for the murder, according to court filings and Del Cid’s statements during his guilty plea.
Prosecutors said Pineda was targeted because MS-13 members suspected he belonged to the rival 18th Street gang.
Del Cid is the first of six participants in Pineda’s murder to be sentenced. All six have pleaded guilty, federal prosecutors said.
Del Cid also admitted participating in the Oct. 10, 2016, murder of Castillo, a 15-year-old Central Islip resident who was suspected by MS-13 of belonging to the 18th Street gang.
Members of the Sailors clique in Brentwood convinced Castillo to travel with them to Freeport to smoke marijuana, prosecutors said.
The group brought Castillo to an isolated marsh along the water at Cow Meadow Park, where Del Cid and other MS-13 members took turns attacking him with a machete.
They buried Castillo’s body at the park. His remains were not recovered until October 2017, one year after the murder.
More than half a dozen MS-13 members have been charged and pleaded guilty in connection with Castillo’s killing, according to prosecutors.
“Today, the defendant faces justice for his role in the brutal murder of two innocent victims, young men who were targeted and tortured by the MS-13 street gang,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said.
Nocella said Del Cid used social media to lure Pineda to his death and that his disregard for human life had been met with a just punishment.
FBI Assistant Director in Charge James Barnacle Jr. said the sentence was another step toward holding violent MS-13 members accountable.
Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder credited the work of county police, the FBI and federal prosecutors.
Although Del Cid was 16 years old at the time of both murders, he was prosecuted as an adult.
A juvenile information was initially filed under seal against him on May 20, 2020. Following an evidentiary hearing, U.S. Circuit Judge Joseph Bianco granted the government’s request to transfer Del Cid to adult status on July 6, 2022.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Long Island Gang Task Force, which includes federal, state, county and local law enforcement agencies.
Federal prosecutors said hundreds of MS-13 members have been convicted in the Eastern District of New York since 2003. Since 2010, the office has obtained indictments accusing MS-13 members of carrying out more than 75 murders in the district.
