Three members of the notorious MS-13 gang pleaded guilty yesterday to stabbing a man and leaving him for dead inside a Hispanic nightclub in Chesterfield County last fall.One of the victim's five stab wounds to the chest punctured his heart in the Oct. 18 attack inside a restroom at Valentino's restaurant on Jefferson Davis Highway. The victim, who they mistakenly believed was their bitter rival, nearly died."The intent was to kill," said Matthew C. Ackley, special prosecutor of the Richmond-metropolitan multijurisdictional grand jury.Authorities described the attack, investigated by Chesterfield police and the Richmond Division of the FBI, as the most significant case of gang violence here involving known members of MS-13. The gang has local contacts but isn't believed to have gained a foothold in the region."The ones that we have identified have been from cliques in Northern Virginia," said Chesterfield Detective Keith Applewhite, a gang expert.The three gang members, natives of El Salvador who had spent time in Northern Virginia and New York, ambushed the victim after they believed the man flashed signs at them denoting he was a member of a rival Hispanic gang known as 18th Street."They are archrivals," Applewhite said of the two gangs. "If they see one another, they'll attack."
Saul Joab "Penguino" Miranda, 27, who was living in Mechanicsville at the time of the attack, was sentenced to serve nine years and four months in prison after pleading guilty to aggravated malicious wounding and criminal street-gang participation. A charge of abduction was withdrawn as part of his plea agreement.
Gilberto Ernesto "Diablo" Gutierrez, 30, living in Chesterfield in October, was sentenced to serve five years in prison after pleading guilty to similar charges. An abduction charge was withdrawn.Antonio "Little Duende" Urrutia-Barrera, 20, living in Reston last fall, pleaded guilty to a single count of aggravated malicious wounding. Abduction and criminal gang-participation charges were withdrawn. He is to be sentenced next week.Urrutia-Barrera recently pleaded guilty in Loudoun County to criminal gang participation, and Ackley said MS-13 commanders sent him to the Richmond area last fall after a shooting in Northern Virginia.In a summary of evidence, Ackley gave this account of the assault:The three defendants were at Valentino's the evening of Oct. 18 when they saw the victim -- identified only as "R.H." in court yesterday -- flash gang signs. Mistakenly believing he was a member of 18th Street, the trio then challenged the victim to come outside. He refused.The defendants then followed him into the restroom, where Miranda and Urrutia-Barrera stabbed the victim repeatedly in the chest, shoulder and hand while Gutierrez held him and blocked the door.The victim was hospitalized for several weeks and still has significant scarring from his wounds and limited use of his right hand, which he no longer can close into a fist. The 26-year-old victim, who lives in South Richmond, denied being a gang member, Ackley said.During a break in yesterday's hearing, Ackley said the defendants may have been pumped up by the Salvadoran rap music playing that evening in the club. They also flashed their gang signs that night, he said.Chesterfield Detective Michael P. Morgott investigated the assault and was assisted by the FBI in linking the defendants to MS-13, a violent gang that originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s by immigrants fleeing El Salvador's civil war.Ackley said an FBI informant infiltrated the gang and provided key information that aided in the defendants' arrest and prosecution. The FBI obtained recorded statements that implicated the trio, Ackley said.At the time of the offense, Miranda and Gutierrez were residing in the U.S. legally as protected refugees from El Salvador, according to their attorneys. Urrutia-Barrera's attorney declined to talk about her client. Miranda and Gutierrez originally lived in Bay Shore, N.Y., and Salisbury, Md., respectively, Ackley said.Through an interpreter, Urrutia-Barrera told Chesterfield Circuit Judge Frederick G. Rockwell III that he has been in the U.S. four or five years and attended high school in Fairfax County.
"This is for the Mara Salvatrucha," a nonfiction narrative about the gang, gives this explanation of the MS-13 name: The initials MS stand for Mara, or "clique," and Salvatrucha, commonly known to mean "street smart." When the Mara Salvatrucha allied themselves with the Mexican Mafia, they adopted "13" as part of their name out of respect, because "M" is the thirteenth letter of the alphabet.

26-year-old Mara Salvatrucha gang member was found guilty of two counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder in a two-day shooting spree in the San Fernando Valley, officials said today.Two years ago, Marlon Osorio approached people he thought were rival gang members, asked where they were from, then opened fire, Deputy L.A. County Dist. Atty. Paul Nunez said in a statement.A Los Angeles jury found Osorio guilty of the first-degree murder of Nelson Ramirez, who was shot five times while he sat in his car in Van Nuys, and Jessie Garcia, who was shot in Canoga Park. Both victims were killed Aug. 7, 2006, the same day Osorio attempted to kill four other people.A week later, Osorio fired on seven others in North Hills, including one woman who suffered a collapsed lung after being shot in the back, Nunez said.Osorio was found not guilty on one count of attempted murder.The jury is scheduled to return Monday to Judge Curtis Rappe’s court for the penalty phase of the capital murder case, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Experts say that as many as 100,000 gang members rule the streets of Central America, most of them in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The gangs have affiliated groups in Mexico and the United States, creating an international net of lawlessness. How many of the members are girls is not clear, though a recent study said that as many as 40 percent of the region's gang members may be females, showing off their sexuality even as they learn to strut and throw a fierce punch.
To join one of Central America's fierce street gangs, Benky, a tiny young woman wearing heavy mascara and with tattoos running up and down her arms, had to have sex with a dozen or so of her homeboys one night. She recalls sobbing uncontrollably when the last young man climbed off her and everyone gathered around to congratulate her on becoming a full-fledged member of the Mara Salvatrucha.To stay in the male-dominated gang, her leader ordered her to rob buses, grab chains off people's necks and even kill a girl from a rival gang. She always complied, although Benky is not sure if her female rival lived or died from the bullet that she fired into the girl's back.Girls in the midst of the deeply machista, or male chauvinist, gang culture thriving in Central America often find themselves straddling the line between victims and victimizers. It is abuse in their home lives that often propel them into the gangs in the first place, and those gangs often continue the abuse under the veil of protection. The gang is their adopted family, they say, offering what proves to be an unpredictable mix of affection and aggression."If a girl is getting abused by her father, the gang will step in and end it," said Gustavo Cifuentes, a streetwise former gang member with an extensive rap sheet who now works for Guatemala's government, trying to lure gang members to better, law-abiding lives.
If the girls do not follow the directions of the leader, Cifuentes acknowledged, a beating or even worse will be the result.
"There are a lot more women and girls than anyone imagined," said Ewa Werner Dahlin, the Swedish ambassador to Guatemala, whose government helped finance a Central America-wide study that included interviews with more than 1,000 past and present gang members, male as well as female. "It's a surprise to the experts, and it shows that the authorities have been reacting to gangs without really understanding them."
There are only a handful of girl-only gangs in the region, experts say, with girl gang leaders. Far more common was Benky's reality - a few young women in a sea of tough, sexually charged young men.
With four jail stints behind her, Benky, 23, is now experiencing a new phase of life, but one that is proving just as rough as those she has endured before. Getting out of a gang can be as challenging as getting in or staying in. In Benky's case, when her fellow Maras learned she was trying to abandon them, they shot her six times.After nine months of hospitalization, she now limps through life, selling candy on the buses she used to rob because her gang tattoos disqualify her from most other forms of employment. Most of those in her gang have died in shootouts with the police, she said, but one of the few still living, a man, spotted her recently on the street and yelled out a threat on her life. He was surprised that she had survived the hit."It looks so good from the outside," remarked Benky, who like others in this article asked to be identified by first names or nicknames to avoid stirring up trouble on the streets.To understand her sentiment, one must know how grim her childhood was, and those of many other gang girls. She began living on the streets, at the age of 6, with an older brother. She is not sure what happened to her mother, but she recalls her father having no interest in raising them.
Her brother was shot by a member of the 18th Street gang, which prompted her to join the other giant gang in the region, the Mara Salvatrucha. "I thought it would be like my family," she said. "I thought I'd get the love I was missing. But they'd hit me. They ordered me around. They told me I had to rob someone or kill someone, and I did it."