42°
Nelson Argueta-Quintanilla, age 24, of Brentwood, was sentenced to more than 27 years behind bars Tuesday, Nov. 22, in federal court in Central Islip.
It followed his September 2021 guilty plea to racketeering charges related to the murder of Oscar Acosta, of Brentwood, and attempted murders of suspected rival gang members, along with conspiracy to distribute drugs.
According to the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District, Argueta-Quintanilla and other MS-13 members decided to kill Acosta because they believed he was associating with a rival gang.
On April 29, 2016, the group attacked Acosta in a wooded area near an elementary school in Brentwood, knocking him unconscious by beating him with tree limbs, prosecutors said.
They then tied his hands and feet up before placing him in the trunk of a car and driving him to a more isolated area near an abandoned psychiatric hospital, according to investigators.
Once there, the group took turns stabbing Acosta with a machete, eventually killing the young man.
His body was discovered five months later buried in a shallow grave in September 2016.
Prosecutors said Argueta-Quintanilla and another MS-13 member later tried killing more suspected rival gang members in Brentwood in August of that year, firing shots into a home on Lukens Avenue.
Some of the shots fired by the other MS-13 member went through the bedroom wall of a nearby home and struck the headboard of an elderly woman’s bed. Nobody was injured in that attack.
Argueta-Quintanilla also admitted that between April 2016 and October 2017, he and other gang members conspired to distribute cocaine and marijuana on behalf of MS-13.
“Demonstrating the defendant’s complete disregard for human life, today’s sentence is a fitting punishment for a brutal murder followed by another reckless shooting,” US Attorney Breon Peace said.
“This Office and our law enforcement partners remain committed to holding violent actors, including gang members, accountable for the fear, destruction, and death they bring to our communities.”
Click here to follow Daily Voice Nassau and receive free news updates.
