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A notorious MS-13 gang leader who has admitted to planning, approving or taking part in at least seven murders in a federal racketeering case has avoided the death penalty and life in prison under the terms of a plea deal, authorities said this week.
Jairo Saenz, 28, is expected to receive a sentence of 40 to 60 years in federal prison after admitting to seven murders, multiple attempted murders, arson and other charges. Saenz’s brother Alexi, another gang leader, previously pleaded guilty to similar charges in exchange for an expected sentence of 70 years behind bars.
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The Saenz brothers were the leaders of a Suffolk County, New York, branch of MS-13 known as the Sailors, according to federal authorities. Their group was known for extreme brutality and violence, including the murder of two Brentwood High School girls with a machete and a baseball bat.
MS-13 GANG LEADER PLEADS GUILTY TO EIGHT BRUTAL MURDERS, INCLUDING TWO TEENS HONORED BY TRUMP IN SOTU SPEECH
Kayla Cuevas, 16, and her friend Nisa Mickens, 15, were killed by MS-13 members in Brentwood, New York, in September 2016.(AP)
They attacked Kayla Cuevas, 16, and Nisa Mickens, 15, after members saw them walking in a neighborhood on Sept. 13, 2016. One of the girls had criticized the Sailors on Facebook. The gang killed them both and left their bodies to be found later.
Suffolk County police offered a $15,000 reward for information on the case. Federal prosecutors and Immigration and Customs Enforcement later became involved during a countrywide crackdown on MS-13 during President Trump’s first term.
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When you look at how barbaric these crimes were, murdering young kids with machetes, baseball bats, this is a clear case for the death penalty.
— Lou Civello, Suffolk PBA president
“It’s disgraceful. It’s an insult to the families,” Suffolk County PBA President Lou Civello said of the plea deal Wednesday. “When you look at how barbaric these crimes were, murdering young kids with machetes, baseball bats, this is a clear case for the death penalty.”
If Saenz serves the lower end of his sentencing range, that amounts to less than six years per murder, Civello told Fox News Digital.
“We’re always grateful for the federal partnership and the resources they bring to the table, but at the same time, we need justice, that’s the important part,” he said. “If it were true justice, this person should never see the light of day again. There should never be the opportunity to be out and back on our streets.”
CHARGES IN DEATH OF ANTI-GANG CRUSADER WHO LOST HER DAUGHTER
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Alexi Saenz, left, and Jairo Saenz, in booking photos taken after their arrests. The brothers have both admitted to being MS-13 leaders and murderers in a federal racketeering case.(US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York)
“The Saenz brothers were no longer facing the possibility of the death penalty,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office told Fox News Digital. “Our Office had been directed by the U.S. Attorney General in 2023 not to seek the penalty if they were convicted of the capital counts.”
During a prior hearing, Saenz, his brother and another gang member joked and laughed in court as the girls’ families were forced to watch from the gallery, Fox News Digital reported in 2018.
WATCH: MS-13 members show no remorse for murders
“For far too long, MS-13 has been meting out their own version of the death penalty,” then-U.S. Attorney Robert Capers, of the Eastern District of New York, said at the time of their arrests.
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Now his predecessors have taken death off the table for the ringleader – and outgoing President Biden has also commuted the death sentences of 37 out of 40 federal death row inmates.
The gang would often drive around town looking for rivals to kill, according to federal prosecutors, sometimes in broad daylight and often by luring or ambushing their victims. But it was unclear how many of the people they attacked were actually gang affiliated.
A memorial to best friends Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas in Brentwood, New York, Sept. 27, 2016, near the spot where their bodies were found.(AP Photo/Claudia Torrens, File)
In one incident, Saenz helped organize the murder of a man whose football jersey they took as a symbol for another gang. A masked gunman snuck up behind Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, 29, as he stood in line at a deli on Jan. 30, 2017. They shot him in the back of the head, and the bullet exited and wounded a woman at the counter.
MS-13 violence got so bad on Long Island that during President Trump’s first term, he visited in person to meet with the families of Cuevas, Mickens and other victims and enlisted then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in an effort to take the gang off the streets, which he said was using immigration “loopholes” to bring members into the U.S.
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MOM HONORED BY TRUMP AFTER MS-13 KILLED HER DAUGHTER IS STRUCK, KILLED BY SUV NEAR MEMORIAL SITE
MS-13 gang member Alexi Saenz is escorted by FBI agents in Central Islip, New York, after being taken into custody. (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, File)
During the meeting, he described MS-13 as “a ruthless gang that has violated our borders and transformed once peaceful neighborhoods into bloodstained killing fields.”
The federal crackdown at the time led to thousands of deportations of its members. Saenz and his group were held to face justice, and former Attorney General Bill Barr’s office would later announce it was seeking the death penalty.
Cuevas’ mother, Evelyn Rodriguez, became a fierce anti-gang activist but died before she ever saw justice. She was run over near her daughter’s memorial in 2018. The driver was convicted of criminally negligent homicide.
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President Trump speaks alongside Evelyn Rodriguez, whose daughter was killed by MS-13 gang members, during a discussion on immigration at Morrelly Homeland Security Center in Bethpage, New York, May 23, 2018.(Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2023, then-U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace told the judge that Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland had directed him to stop pursuing the death penalty. Peace stepped down Friday and has been succeeded by acting U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny, who is expected to hold the post until Trump-nominated Joseph Nocella Jr. is confirmed.
Trump has vowed to not only end Biden’s moratorium on capital punishment, but also to expand the list of crimes that can be punishable with execution to include child rape, human trafficking and the murder of U.S. citizens by illegal immigrants. Thirteen federal inmates were executed during Trump’s first term, the most under any president in decades, but Biden halted executions after taking office in 2021.
Experts tell Fox News Digital the deal is light, but it could have taken shape for a number of reasons, such as if Saenz agreed to cooperate against his co-conspirators. Avoiding trial also uses fewer government resources and spares the victims’ families from having to re-live the horror in court – or seeing the murderers continue to smirk and joke around.
Attorney General Merrick Garland speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice, Sept. 24, 2024, in Washington.(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
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Still, prosecutors could have sought a stiffer punishment without seeking execution.
“This is a very light sentence, considering the circumstances in the fact of this case,” said David Gelman, a New Jersey-based defense attorney and former prosecutor.
“The only plea deal that I would’ve offered is life in prison without the possibility of parole. Here these gang members are going to get an opportunity to not only get out while they are still living, but they probably will get out earlier than their expected sentence.”
Civello also noted the new threat of the Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua, but he said he is hopeful that new leadership will boost public safety across the country after Trump is inaugurated Monday.
The Boston City Council is setting out on a new two-year term with a new council president at the helm.
City Councilor Liz Breadon, who represents District 9, won the gavel on a 7-6 contested vote, cobbling together her candidacy just hours before the council was set to vote.
“An opportunity presented itself and I took it,” Breadon said. “We’re in a very critical time, given politics, and I really feel that in this moment, we need to set steady leadership, and really to bring the council together.”
The process apparently including backroom conversations and late-night meetings as City Councilors Gabriella Coletta Zapata and Brian Worrell both pushed to become the next council president.
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Breadon spoke on why support waned for her two colleagues.
“I think they had support that was moving,” said Breadon. “It was moving back and forward, it hadn’t solidified solidly in one place. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the moment.”
Political commentator Sue O’Connell talks about the last-minute maneuvering before the upset vote and what it says about Mayor Michelle Wu’s influence.
Some speculated that Mayor Michelle Wu’s administration was lobbying for a compromise candidate after Coletta Zapata dropped out of the race. Breadon disputes the mayor’s involvement.
“I would say not,” said Breadon. “I wasn’t in conversation with the mayor about any of this.”
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Beyond the election, Breadon took a look ahead to how she will lead the body. Controversy has been known to crop up at City Hall, most recently when former District 7 Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges tied to a kickback scheme involving taxpayer dollars.
Breadon said it’s critical to stay calm and allow the facts to come out in those situations.
“I feel that it’s very important to be very deliberative in how we handle these things and not to sort of shoot from the hip and have a knee-jerk reaction to what’s happening,” said Breadon.
Tune in Sunday at 9:30 am for our extended @Issue Sitdown with Breadon, when we dig deeper into how her candidacy came together, the priorities she’ll pursue in the role and which colleagues she’ll place in key council positions.
Days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officer fatally shot a woman in Minneapolis, Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor reaffirmed that he will not cooperate with ICE.
Former Mayor Ed Gainey had taken the same position.
“My stance never changed,” O’Connor told TribLive on Friday. “We’re not going to cooperate.”
O’Connor said the same thing on the campaign trail, promising his administration would not partner with ICE.
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“My priority is to turn the city around and help it grow,” O’Connor said. “For us, it’s got to be focusing on public safety in the city of Pittsburgh.”
President Donald Trump has sent a surge of federal officers into Minneapolis, where tensions have escalated sharply.
O’Connor said he had spoken this week with Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb, who heads the Democratic Mayors Association. The group has condemned ICE’s actions in the wake of Wednesday’s fatal encounter in Minneapolis, where an ICE officer shot and killed 37-year-old Nicole Macklin Good, a U.S. citizen described as a poet and mother.
“Mayors are on the ground every day working to keep our communities safe,” the association said in a statement Thursday. “If Trump were serious about public safety, he would work with our cities, not against them. If he were serious, he would stop spreading propaganda and lies, and end the fear, the force, and the federal overreach.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has come out strongly against the Trump administration and ICE, penning an op-ed piece for the New York Times with the headline, “I’m the Mayor of Minneapolis. Trump Is Lying to You.”
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said an ICE officer shot Good in self-defense. Noem described the incident as “domestic terrorism” carried out against ICE officers and claimed Good tried to “run them over and rammed them with her vehicle.”
The circumstances of the incident are in dispute.
In December, ICE agents were involved in a scuffle in Pittsburgh’s Mount Washington neighborhood as they arrested a Latino man.
According to neighbors, two unmarked vehicles sandwiched a white Tacoma in the 400 block of Norton Street, broke the driver’s side window, pulled a man from the vehicle and got into a physical altercation. Pepper spray was deployed and seemed to get in the eyes of both the man being detained and at least one immigration agent.
At least some of the officers on the scene in that incident belong to ICE.
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They targeted the man, Darwin Alexander Davila-Perez, a Nicaraguan national, for claiming to be a U.S. citizen while trying to buy a gun, according to court papers.
The U.S. economy added fewer jobs than expected in December, capping what economists say was the weakest year for job creation since 2009, aside from 2020.
Data from October shows about 73,000 job openings in Connecticut, according to the Connecticut Business and Industry Association. The state’s unemployment rate stands at about 4%, which is historically low.
Here is the topline information from Connecticut’s October and November jobs report released this week, according to the state’s Labor Department (data was delayed due to the government shutdown):
Overall, Connecticut job growth is +1,800 from November 2024 to November 2025.
Private sector payrolls were up 1,900 in November after a 900 decline in October.
Health Care & Social Assistance is up 1,700 in November and recovered September losses.
Construction is at the highest level since August 2008, a trend expected to continue with infrastructure and housing initiatives.
Retail continues a slow downward trajectory. The sector was up 200 jobs in November, not enough to offset September and October losses.
Initial unemployment claims are just under 30,000, slightly higher than last year at this time when they were around 25,000.
In a press release, Connecticut Department of Labor Commissioner Danté Bartolomeo said: “After several years of strong job growth that created a job seekers’ market, the economy is now more competitive—it takes job seekers longer to find employment than it has in the recent past.”
Experts say the experience of finding a job can be very different for job seekers.
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Dustin Nord, director of the CBIA Foundation for Economic Growth and Opportunity, said the state may be seeing what economists call frictional unemployment.
“We’re not seeing huge changes in hiring and quits,” Nord said, adding that it’s possible people who are losing positions are not necessarily seeing positions open in the field that they’re losing their job from.
Although unemployment remains relatively low, Nord said recent trends raise concerns about the direction of the labor market.
“There’s not that many people on the sidelines, but I’d say the trends are definitely not moving in the right direction,” Nord said.
Connecticut faces longer‑term workforce challenges. The state’s labor force has declined by about 19,600 people since January, according to the new data.
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“Federal immigration policies may impact these numbers. Connecticut employers rely on an immigrant workforce to offset retirements in Connecticut’s aging workforce and the state’s low birthrate; 23% of Connecticut workers are born outside of the U.S.,” the state’s Department of Labor said.
Connecticut’s labor force participation rate of 64% is higher than the national rate of 62.5%, the Department of Labor said.
The CBIA said since the COVID‑19 pandemic, Connecticut’s labor force has grown just 0.2%, compared with 4.3% growth nationwide.
That gap is occurring even as wages rise. Average weekly earnings in Connecticut are up 5.4% since November 2024, outpacing inflation.
Still, the CBIA says those gains reinforce the need to address affordability across the state.
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“If we take the right steps, especially over the next six months, to try to find ways to make it more affordable,” Nord said. “I think there’s no reason we can’t continue to see, at least steady economic activity in the state.”
Nord said those steps include addressing costs tied to housing, energy and childcare.
Overall, the data suggests Connecticut’s job growth has been largely stagnant. Looking ahead, what happens in 2026 will depend both on state‑level policy decisions and broader national economic trends.
Patrick Flaherty, director of research at the Connecticut Department of Labor, said in a review of the data that recent numbers suggest the pace of growth could continue, but at a slower rate.
“The November increase suggests modest job growth that Connecticut’s labor market has shown could continue into 2026, although at a slower pace, as long as the nation avoids a downturn,” Flaherty said.
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See the state report here. Read the CBIA’s analysis here.
