Trinitarios Leader Sentenced To Life In Prison For Teen Murders And Other Brutal Crimes

United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jay Clayton, announced that CARLOS RAMIREZ, a/k/a “Guerra,” was sentenced today to life in prison for his participation in a racketeering conspiracy and two murders committed as a member of the Sunset Trinitarios, a violent street gang.  RAMIREZ was found guilty following a two-week trial before U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman, who imposed today’s sentence.

​“As a member of the Sunset Trinitarios, Carlos Ramirez was an unapologetic killer and responsible for brutal violence that endangered the lives of far more people than the two teenagers whom he murdered in 2013 and 2014,” said U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton.  “After he was arrested and charged for these crimes, he was undeterred and attempted to stab to death the former leader of his own gang in a gruesome and vicious attack while incarcerated.  He will never walk the streets of New York again, and this Office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to bankrupt the cartels, dismantle the gangs, and remove from our streets all those who pursue death and violence as a way of life.”

According to the Indictment, public court filings, and the evidence presented at trial:

From 2010 to 2024, members of the Sunset Trinitarios, a violent drug trafficking organization and street gang founded in Sunset Park in Brooklyn, New York, committed a terrifying number of violent crimes, including multiple murders and attempted murders and numerous gunpoint robberies all across the metropolitan area.  RAMIREZ was one of the members of the Sunset Trinitarios during this period, and he rose to multiple positions of leadership within the gang, both out on the street and when he was incarcerated in the custody of state and federal detention facilities in New York City.  As a “devil soldier messenger” of the Sunset Trinitarios, which came to celebrate the murder of innocent victims and their purported delivery to the devil, RAMIREZ obtained two identical tattoos memorializing the two murders he committed on behalf of the gang.

On October 23, 2013, RAMIREZ participated in the murder of Michael Beltre, who was seventeen years old.  Beltre was shot multiple times on the street in the Bronx after RAMIREZ struck him and held him for another gang member to shoot.

On November 2, 2014, RAMIREZ murdered Jordanny Correa, who was nineteen years old.  RAMIREZ shot Correa multiple times at point-blank range inside an apartment in the Bronx.  

On February 28, 2023, RAMIREZ attempted to murder a former leader of the Sunset Trinitarios inside the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.  RAMIREZ committed this attack because he believed that this former leader had previously supplied information to law enforcement.  With the help of others, RAMIREZ slashed and stabbed the victim with a knife, causing severe injuries to the victim’s face and the rest of his body in multiple locations.

10 others of RAMIREZ’s co-conspirators and fellow members of the Sunset Trinitarios previously pled guilty and have received sentences that have ranged from multiple years through life in prison.

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Mr. Clayton praised the outstanding investigative work of the New York Drug Enforcement Task Force, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and the New York City Department of Correction.

This case is being handled by the Office’s Violent and Organized Crime Unit.  Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas John Wright, Brandon D. Harper, and Timothy Ly are in charge of the prosecution.