New federal indictment charges MS-13 gang members with 2016 murder of Brentwood boy, second killing

Two MS-13 gang members were charged Tuesday with the 2016 murder of Miguel Garcia-Moran, a 15-year-old they mistakenly believed was a member of a rival gang, and the 2023 murder of Carlos Lemus-Interiano, who was abducted in Huntington and killed in Maryland.

The racketeering charges, unsealed in U.S. District Court in Central Islip, also include charges of conspiracy to murder Carlos Lopez Lopez, a gang member, and conspiracy to distribute marijuana on behalf of their gang clique, Vegas Locos Salvatruchas.

The men, Edwin Chavez-Garay, known as “Spooky" and “Cruger," and Jairo Diaz-Gamez, known as “Cameleon" and “Anonino," face life in prison and the potential for the death penalty, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Scotti said in court. While others have been charged in connection with the killings of Garcia-Moran and Lemus-Interiano, this superseding indictment charged these two men with the murders for the first time.

Both men pleaded not guilty. They were held without bail because Chavez-Garay, a native of El Salvador, and Diaz-Gamez, a native of Honduras, posed a flight risk, Scotti said.

Their attorney, John Curran, declined to comment.

One woman who said she was the sister of Lemus-Interiano declined to be interviewed because “it’s a very delicate case," but said the family received a little bit of justice today.

In the case of Garcia-Moran, the gang members lured an “innocent 15-year-old boy" into a wooded area behind 80 Emjay Blvd. in Brentwood and beat him to death with metal rods in February 2016, according to court papers.

Months later, in September 2016, Suffolk police who were searching for evidence in the murder of 19-year-old Oscar Acosta found Garcia-Moran’s skeletal remains in the woods.

Garcia-Moran’s murder was part of a convulsion of MS-13 gang violence that wracked Suffolk County that year. When the first few Hispanic teenagers started disappearing, it attracted little public attention.

Then in September 2016, the mutilated bodies of two girls, 15-year-old Kayla Cuevas and 16-year-old Nisa Mickens, were found in a cul-de-sac in Brentwood. Their killings, by machete and baseball bat, jolted the public consciousness.

Authorities said the girls had offended some gang members with social media posts.

The story became national news and the Suffolk County Police Department began a crackdown on MS-13. In July 2017, then-President Donald Trump gave a speech at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood describing some Long Island neighborhoods as “blood-stained killing fields" that are “under siege," Newsday reported.

Garcia-Moran’s mother, Carlota Moran, spoke to Newsday in a joint reporting project with ProPublica about her son’s case after his body was found. She said police dismissed her complaint and suggested her son had merely gone to New York City with friends.

She said it was her daughter, not police, who discovered text messages that suggested Garcia-Moran had been lured into the woods on the night he was killed.

In July 2025, Alexi Saenz, 30, the leader of a Long Island MS-13 clique, was sentenced to 68 years in prison for his role in eight murders, including the killings of the two girls.

“The victims’ families have endured unimaginable loss, and we will continue working with our partners to dismantle criminal networks and prevent others from suffering the same pain and fear," Suffolk Police Commissioner Kevin Catalina said in a news release.

In the case of Lemus-Interiano, the defendants killed a fellow gang member, court papers say.

By 2023, he had fallen out of favor with the clique and was targeted for death. The defendants kidnapped him in Huntington, drove him to a park in Maryland and shot and killed him, according to the court papers.

It wasn’t until February of last year that police found his remains — a humerus bone — at Piscataway Stream Valley Park in Fort Washington, Maryland. A subsequent search and excavation uncovered more human remains and a bullet.

In March 2025, Lopez-Lopez was stabbed and drowned at a beach in Blue Point by fellow gang members because they believed he was an informant. Chavez-Garay and Diaz-Gamez helped dig his grave, the court papers say.

The defendants are scheduled to return to court Dec. 3.

“The charges in the Superseding Indictment demonstrate the commitment by our Office and our law enforcement partners to hold vicious transnational organized crime groups like MS-13 accountable for their crimes, no matter how long it takes,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District Joseph Nocella said in a statement.

Newsday’s Belisa Morillo and NewsdayTV's Andrew Ehinger contributed to this story.