MS-13's 'Salvadoran rules' led gang to cut out man's heart, feds say at L.A. trial

Angel Guzman, held for years awaiting trial in a major Los Angeles gang murder case, received a new tattoo showing a heart gripped by clawlike fingers. Federal prosecutors said the tattoo reflected the crime he was accused of committing in 2017 in the Angeles National Forest, where Juan Jose Sibrian was killed and hacked up. Prosecutors alleged Sibrian’s heart was carved out and the remains were thrown over a canyon. The killing was presented as part of a violent transformation within MS-13’s Fulton clique. Prosecutors said the gang previously relied on drug sales, robberies, and beatings, but in 2015 leaders enforced “Salvadoran rules” requiring aspiring members to kill to become full members. Prosecutors also alleged Edgar Velasquez acted as a shot caller who decided promotions and credit for murders.

"Angel Guzman had been locked up for years, awaiting trial in one of the most grisly gang murder cases in Los Angeles history, when prosecutors say he chose a new tattoo. The black image, inked across his chest, showed a human heart gripped by long, clawlike fingers. To federal prosecutors, the tattoo was evidence of the crime Guzman stood accused of committing. In the Angeles National Forest in 2017, authorities say, Guzman killed and hacked up the body of Juan Jose Sibrian, carving out his heart and tossing his remains over the edge of a canyon."

"The killing, prosecutors told jurors at Guzman's trial in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom this month, was the consequence of a violent transformation inside MS-13's Fulton clique, a San Fernando Valley subset described as one of the gang's most violent factions in the United States. For most of the gang's history, Assistant U.S. Atty. Suria Bahadue told the jury, its L.A. chapters allowed young MS-13 associates to rise through the ranks by selling drugs, robbing people, carrying out beatings or putting in other "work." But in 2015, she told the jury, all of that changed."

""There was a shift in the way MS-13 operated in this city," Bahadue said. "That shift resulted in extreme violence." According to the prosecutor, the gang's leaders began enforcing "Salvadoran rules," which required aspiring members to kill in order to become full-fledged "homeboys." Guzman is one of four men on trial for racketeering and charges they used violence to further the gang's interests."

"Prosecutors charge that Edgar Velasquez was the Fulton clique's "corredor," or shot caller, deciding who lived, who died, who received credit for a murder and who earned promotion. The government maintains it was Velasquez who ordered the gang to begin adhering to the same rules laid down by the gang's leadership in El Salvador."

Read at Los Angeles Times