-from timesdispatch.com-

By Matthew Barakat

He faces life in prison for killing an MS-13 member in 2004

McLEAN — The leader of a local clique of the MS-13 gang was convicted yesterday of murder and racketeering in the 2004 shooting of a fellow gang member.

Wilfredo “Nino” Montoya Baires, 27, of Reston shot and killed Jose Escobar in August 2004 inside a Manassas home after falsely suspecting Escobar of cooperating with police.

Baires faces a mandatory term of life in prison when he is formally sentenced Dec. 15 in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. Prosecutors elected not to pursue capital punishment.

Baires was a leader of the SLS clique of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha, a gang with roots in El Salvador that has been responsible for multiple killings and assaults, including machete attacks, in the region in recent years.

Two defendants in the case — Wilfredo Lopez-Lopez and Fredy Escobar — pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder in the aid of racketeering and face up to 10 years in prison when sentenced Dec. 1.

According to trial evidence, the gang voted to “green light,” or kill, Jose Escobar at the request of leaders Fredy Escobar and Baires.

Federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia have obtained 11 convictions of MS-13 members on charges related to murder, and 10 have been sentenced to life in prison. Other gang members have been prosecuted on immigration, drugs and weapons charges.

Fredy Escobar and Baires initially were charged with murder in Prince William County before the case shifted to federal court.

That case was hindered when a relative of the victim who witnessed the attack recanted statements to police after saying his family in El Salvador had received threats.

After the relative changed his story, local prosecutors had to drop murder charges against another man, Reynaldo Alexander Cordova of Falls Church, who had been accused of standing guard outside the house while the murder took place. Cordova has not been recharged.