Man pleads guilty in string of MS-13 killings that stunned New York suburbs

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A man who helped lead an MS-13 clique in New York pleaded guilty Tuesday in a federal racketeering case involving seven murders, including the 2016 killings of two high school girls that focused the nation’s attention on the violent Central American street gang.

Jairo Saenz, 28, entered the plea in federal court in Central Islip in a hearing attended by members of his family and some of the victims’ families.

“I did these things and I knew they were wrong,” he said in Spanish through a translator after his lawyer read his accounting of the killings in suburban Long Island, just east of New York City.

Saenz, who is originally from El Salvador, faces 40 to 60 years in prison as part of the plea deal approved by the judge.

Prosecutors said he was the second-in-command in a gang clique known as Sailors Locos Salvatruchas Westside that quietly terrorized the hamlets of Brentwood and Central Islip for months before a particularly brutal crime on Sept. 13, 2016, made headlines.

Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16, lifelong friends and classmates at Brentwood High School, were walking through a quiet neighborhood near their homes when they were killed with a machete and a baseball bat by a group of young men and teenage boys who had stalked them in a car.

More killings followed in the coming months. President Donald Trump blamed the violence and gang growth on lax immigration policies as he made several visits to Long Island, invited Cuevas' mother to his State of the Union address in 2018, and later called for the death penalty for Saenz and others arrested in the killings.

Saenz's brother, Alexi Saenz, the clique’s leader, previously pleaded guilty to similar charges and will be sentenced later this month.

The brothers have admitted they ordered or approved the killings of rivals and others who disrespected or feuded with the clique in order to move up in the MS-13 hierarchy and bolster their group's reputation.

Saenz’s family and lawyers didn’t comment outside court, but the parents of two of the victims said they wished he had been given a life sentence.

“It was some justice, but not what I wanted,” said George Johnson, the father of 29-year-old Michael Johnson, who was bludgeoned and stabbed to death in Brentwood in 2016. “At least he’s not out in the street to hurt anybody else.”

Nisa's mother, Elizabeth Alvarado, lamented that her daughter was just a day shy of her 16th birthday when she died.

“That really hurt because she had so many dreams,” Alvarado said outside the courthouse. “She wanted to be a veterinarian. She wanted to be a nurse like me and her dad. There’s just so many things that I’m missing out on.”

Other victims in the case included Javier Castillo, a 15-year-old whom prosecutors say gang members befriended before driving him to a secluded park and attacking him with machetes.

Another victim, Oscar Acosta, 19, was discovered dead in a wooded area near some railroad tracks five months after leaving home to play soccer.

Older victims included Esteban Alvarado-Bonilla, 29, who was killed by a gunman inside a Central Islip deli in early 2017 and Dewann Stacks, 34, who was ambushed and beaten to death as he walked along a road in Brentwood.

Saenz also pleaded guilty Tuesday to his participation in three attempted killings; arson; narcotics trafficking; firearms offenses; and a conspiracy to kill Marcus Bohannon, who was slain by other MS-13 members in 2016.

Acting U.S. Attorney Carolyn Pokorny said in a statement that Saenz took part in “barbaric, and multiple acts of senseless gang violence that had turned parts of Long Island into a war zone” with MS-13 gang members “wielding guns, machetes, bats and fire” in their reign of terror.

“It is my sincere hope that today’s guilty plea brings some measure of solace and closure to the families of the defendant’s victims who continue to mourn the deaths of their loved ones,” she added.

FILE - A memorial to best friends Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas in Brentwood, N.Y., Sept. 27, 2016, near the spot where their bodies were found. (AP Photo/Claudia Torrens, File)

Elizabeth Alvarado, the mother of Nisa Mickens, a 15-year-old who was killed by MS-13 gang members in 2016, speaks outside the federal court, behind, in Central Islip, New York, where Jairo Saenz, a high-ranking member of a local MS-13 clique, pleaded guilty to racketeering and other federal charges on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo)

George Johnson, the father of Michael Johnson, a 29-year-old who was killed by MS-13 gang members in 2016, speaks outside the federal court, behind, in Central Islip, New York, where Jairo Saenz, a high-ranking member of a local MS-13 clique, pleaded guilty to racketeering and other federal charges on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo)

This undated mug shot released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York, shows who authorities identify as Jairo Saenz in New York. (U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of New York via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place Jan. 20, one year after he took office.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street in addition to the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and have supported Trump's second-term agenda. Banks are making the argument that such a plan would most hurt poor people, at a time of economic concern, by curtailing or eliminating credit lines, driving them to high-cost alternatives like payday loans or pawnshops.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

About 195 million people in the United States had credit cards in 2024 and were assessed $160 billion in interest charges, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says. Americans are now carrying more credit card debt than ever, to the tune of about $1.23 trillion, according to figures from the New York Federal Reserve for the third quarter last year.

Further, Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the past year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s. That’s significantly higher than a decade ago, when the average credit card interest rate was roughly 12%.

The Republican administration has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office.

In a joint statement, the banking industry was opposed to Trump's proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives," the American Bankers Association and allied groups said.

Bank lobbyists have long argued that lowering interest rates on their credit card products would require the banks to lend less to high-risk borrowers. When Congress enacted a cap on the fee that stores pay large banks when customers use a debit card, banks responded by removing all rewards and perks from those cards. Debit card rewards only recently have trickled back into consumers' hands. For example, United Airlines now has a debit card that gives miles with purchases.

The U.S. already places interest rate caps on some financial products and for some demographics. The Military Lending Act makes it illegal to charge active-duty service members more than 36% for any financial product. The national regulator for credit unions has capped interest rates on credit union credit cards at 18%.

Credit card companies earn three streams of revenue from their products: fees charged to merchants, fees charged to customers and the interest charged on balances. The argument from some researchers and left-leaning policymakers is that the banks earn enough revenue from merchants to keep them profitable if interest rates were capped.

"A 10% credit card interest cap would save Americans $100 billion a year without causing massive account closures, as banks claim. That’s because the few large banks that dominate the credit card market are making absolutely massive profits on customers at all income levels," said Brian Shearer, director of competition and regulatory policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator, who wrote the research on the industry's impact of Trump's proposal last year.

There are some historic examples that interest rate caps do cut off the less creditworthy to financial products because banks are not able to price risk correctly. Arkansas has a strictly enforced interest rate cap of 17% and evidence points to the poor and less creditworthy being cut out of consumer credit markets in the state. Shearer's research showed that an interest rate cap of 10% would likely result in banks lending less to those with credit scores below 600.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to reign in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long."

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., released a plan in February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump's post, Sanders said that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Seung Min Kim reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

President Donald Trump arrives on Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport, Friday, Jan. 9, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Visa and Mastercard credit cards are shown in Buffalo Grove, Ill., Feb. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh, File)