3 MS-13 gang members indicted in violent 2015 Florida murder

Shira Moolten, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Apr 4, 2025

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Three members of the MS-13 gang have been indicted in the violent murder of a 22-year-old man in Palm Beach County nearly 10 years ago, national and local officials announced Friday morning.

The murder, in which officials say the man was stabbed over 100 times and then shot in the head as part of a gang initiation, is one of a string of four brutal stabbings in South Florida that took place in 2014 and 2015, all done with knives or machetes and tied to the transnational gang, which the U.S. has designated a terrorist organization.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the indictments alongside Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony, Hayden O’Byrne, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Brett Skiles, the acting Special Agent in Charge for FBI Miami.

The three people indicted last month — Jose Ezequiel Gamez-Maravilla, Hugo Adiel Bermudez-Martinez, and Wilber Rosendo Navarro-Escobar — join six MS-13 members previously convicted in 2024 and the beginning of 2025 in relation to each of the four deaths. The three recently indicted men were arrested over their alleged involvement in the 2015 death of 22-year-old Gerson Vilelio Vasquez-Portillo, who Bondi said was referred to as a “piñata” and stabbed over 100 times as part of a gang initiation.

All of the deaths, save for Portillo’s, took place in Oakland Park.

As she spoke Friday, Bondi emphasized the brutality of the MS-13 gang members as well as their ability to hide in plain sight, rhetoric that the Trump administration has used to support its widespread immigration crackdown. Gamez-Maravilla was hanging dry wall in The Villages when he was arrested, Bondi said.

“They are living among us,” Bondi said. “Because they think they can get away with this, and they cannot.”

While MS-13 “is known to be active in Broward County,” it “is not believed to have a significant presence in the county,” the Broward Sheriff’s Office said in a news release about the indictments. The release did not say why three of the murders took place in Oakland Park.

The murders began with Joel Antonio Canizales-Lara, 18, in 2014, followed by Omar DeJesus Gutierrez, 18, in January of 2015, Portillo in May of 2015, and Chrislet Ondina in October of 2015.

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