Department of Justice Seal Department of Justice
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2007
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CRM
(202) 514-2007
TDD (202) 514-1888

MS-13 Member Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Involvement in a Racketeering Conspiracy

WASHINGTON – A member of La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for his participation in a racketeering enterprise, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Edward M. Yarbrough for the Middle District of Tennessee announced today.

Henry Garballo-Vasquez, a.k.a. Cuervo, was sentenced today by Chief U.S. District Judge Todd J. Campbell of the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville. Judge Campbell also ordered Garballo-Vasquez to serve three years of supervised release.

Garballo-Vasquez pleaded guilty to a charge of RICO conspiracy, and is the second defendant to be sentenced on the RICO indictment returned by a federal grand jury on Jan. 10, 2007. That indictment charges 14 members of MS-13 with conspiring to participate in the affairs of a racketeering enterprise and related charges including murder, attempted murder, assault, weapons charges, and obstruction of justice. Trial for the remaining five defendants is currently scheduled for April 8, 2008.

The MS-13 street gang is a violent international criminal organization composed primarily of immigrants or descendants of immigrants from El Salvador. The purpose of the racketeering enterprise was to preserve and protect the power, territory and profits of the MS-13 enterprise through violent assault, murder, threats of violence, and intimidation.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jimmie Lynn Ramsaur of the Middle District of Tennessee and Department of Justice Trial Attorneys David Jaffe and John Han from the Criminal Division’s Gang Squad.

The case was investigated by the Nashville Metropolitan Police Department’s Gang Suppression Unit, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Department of Homeland Security, the Davidson County District Attorney General’s Office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Middle District of Tennessee, and the Gang Squad of the Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice.

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