MS-13 Member Gets 37 Years in Gang Rapes

An MS-13 gang member who orchestrated and participated in the gang rape of two teenage girls in Hyattsville was sentenced to 37 years in prison yesterday by a federal judge who called his actions "the most extreme and serious conduct I've seen in a courtroom."

As she imposed the sentence on Oscar Ramos "Casper" Velasquez, 22, Judge Deborah K. Chasanow said of the victims: "Their scars will be with them throughout the rest of their lives. It was indeed life-altering for them."

At U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sandra Wilkinson asked Chasanow to impose a life sentence. Defense attorney Richard C. Bittner asked the judge to depart from complex federal sentencing guidelines and impose a term of 20 years. Chasanow's sentence falls within the guidelines.

Just before Chasanow announced her sentence, Velasquez, who did not testify during a trial that lasted nearly two months, said through an interpreter that he had done no wrong. "I know that everyone thinks that I'm a devil, but only the Lord knows my heart," Velasquez said. "I never hurt anyone, and it hurts me what they're saying. May His will be done, not that of man."

Velasquez wept softly as he finished speaking. Some of the more than two dozen relatives and others who were in the courtroom to support him also wept.

Velasquez and a co-defendant, Edgar Alberto "Pony" Ayala, were convicted in November of racketeering and related charges. Ayala, 29, has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.

The victims were 15 and 16 years old when the assaults occurred in May 2003. They testified that Velasquez drove them to a "skip party," where high school students skipped classes, at an apartment in Hyattsville.

The older victim, a student at Laurel High School, testified that Velasquez took her into a bedroom and told her that if she didn't have sex with him, as many as 15 other teenagers and young men at the gathering would have sex with her. When she resisted, Velasquez threatened her with a gun, she testified.

Eight men, but not Velasquez, raped her, she testified. Velasquez and others raped the younger victim, according to court testimony.

Ayala and Velasquez were the first two defendants to be tried in a sweeping federal racketeering indictment of MS-13 gang members. To date, 30 people have been charged with racketeering, and nine have pleaded guilty to that offense or related charges. Five others have been convicted by federal juries.

The racketeering case is part of a legal assault by federal and local authorities on MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha. In recent years, the gang, made up primarily of Salvadoran and other Central American immigrants, has been responsible for dozens of homicides and other assaults in suburban Maryland, Northern Virginia, and, to a lesser extent, the District, according to law enforcement officials.

The original indictment charged gang members with killing six people in suburban Maryland and one in Northern Virginia.