A pair of New York City Trinitarios gang leaders were convicted last week of the caught-on-video machete slaughter of an innocent 15-year-old boy four years ago in a tragic case of mistaken identity.
Diego Suero, 33, and Frederick Then, 24, were accused of being the heads of the Los Sures set of the Trinitarios gang and were found guilty of second-degree murder for the brutal attack on Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz. They were sentenced to 25 years to life in prison after a four-week trial in Bronx Supreme Court.
On June 20, 2018, Suero and Then called a meeting of gang members and ordered an ambush on rival Trinitarios group “Sunset,” according to prosecutors.
Five men, who were convicted in 2019, spotted Guzman-Feliz in the Tremont section of the Bronx, mistaking him for a “Sunset” member.
The group chased him for around four blocks into a bodega where Guzmán tried to hide but they punched him, dragged from the store, and hacked him to death on the sidewalk with a machete and knives.
Then watched the ambush from nearby and called Suero to confirm the hit had been carried out, prosecutors said.
The killers and Then fled to Suero’s house where they stashed their weapons. Suero later took one member to a barber shop and paid for him to have his hair dyed to disguise his identity, according to trial testimony.
The murder was captured on surveillance footage that quickly went viral. It sparked outrage across the city and internationally, with the hashtag #JusticeForJunior calling for his killers to be brought to justice.
Guzman-Feliz had no gang affiliations.
