A Prince George’s County, Maryland, man has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of murder, racketeering and conspiracy in the brutal 2019 slaying of a 16-year-old, who was stabbed 100 times.
Jose Domingo Ordonez-Zometa, 33, was one of three members of the MS-13 street gang convicted in federal court in the killing of Jacson Pineda-Chicas, of Falls Church, Virginia.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis on Monday.
Prosecutors said Ordonez-Zometa, who was the head of an MS-13 “clique” that operated in the D.C. area, called a meeting at his Landover Hills house in March 2019 to question Pineda-Chicas’ loyalty to the gang and then ordered other members to kill the teen.
Authorities said Pineda-Chicas was stabbed more than 100 times in Ordonez-Zometa’s basement.
Prosecutors said the gang leader then ordered other members of the gang to take the body to a remote area of Stafford County, Virginia, where the remains were set on fire, while he stayed behind to clean up the blood in his basement.
Ordonez-Zometa was convicted in December, in a two-week trial alongside co-defendants Jose Rafael Ortega-Ayala, 30, of Greenbelt, Maryland; and Jose Henry Hernandez-Garcia, 29, of Annandale, Virginia.
Ortega-Ayala and Hernandez-Garcia both face mandatory sentences of life in prison when they are sentenced. Their sentencing dates have not yet been set.
All three men were charged in federal court in July 2020.
