Two teens who pleaded guilty in February to charges related to the murder of a fellow gang member in 2007 are scheduled to be sentenced Thursday morning.
Manny Erevia, 16, pleaded guilty to murder and Jose Cruz, 17, pleaded guilty to facilitation to commit murder. Both are expected to appear in Fayette Circuit Court for sentencing Thursday morning.
Luis Quiroz, 19, was found shot in a car on Trailwood Lane on Dec. 21, 2007.
Erevia admitted that he was the one who shot Quiroz. He said he called the victim, met him and told him they were going to commit a robbery, which was a lie. Instead they went to Trailwood Lane, where Erevia called several other men. Erevia got out of his vehicle, walked to the passenger side where Quiroz was sitting and fired a 9mm handgun at Quiroz’s head.
Erevia left in a vehicle with the other men.
Quiroz was taken to University of Kentucky Hospital where he died.
Erevia said Matthew Robey, 27, told him to kill Quiroz, and he had to comply with orders because Robey was at a higher rank within the Latin Kings. Erevia said Julio Varges-Torres, 18, supplied him with the gun.
Robey pleaded guilty last month to first-degree complicity to manslaughter and second-degree unlawful transaction with a minor. He said he ordered gang members to beat up Quiroz, not to kill him.
Vargas has pleaded guilty to criminal facilitation.
they ALL need to be rooted out and run out. this blight on lexington is heartbreaking. the police need to set up a sub-station (if they haven’t already) in the village drive/cardinal hill area. and they ought to run it with the heaviest iron fist there is.
when i think of the lexington of 10 years ago compared to today - i am ill. because we were so interested in cheap labor, we allowed this to take a foothold. we allowed it - we need to clean it up.
Hate to say, I told you so, but this is just a small taste of the havoc gangs can bring to a city. Many of these thugs are illegals, but Lexington apparently doesn’t understand the correlation here. Illegals plus gangs equals crime.
The truth is populations high with immigrants actually have LOWER crime rates! You can not generalize this one act of violence with an entire population.
Also, perhaps if police were not consistently antagonizing immigrants (pulling them over when they are not breaking any laws, searching their homes without warrants) then they would have better relationships with the communities and could work effectively on preventing crime.
Kate
ADDITIONALLY, there is no such thing as being an “illegal” if you run a red light you are not an “illegal” driver for the next 25 years.
It is the same type of rhetoric that has been used against african americans during the civil rights movement and on Jews by Nazi’s during WWII. Making them sub-human is all this term does.
They all wooses compare to gangs in Chicago! I swear gangs in this town are just wannabees who think they’re bad. Wimps!
I have to agree with Ellie 100%.
Most of the illegal’s don’t have the same regard for life that most of us do.
Just becuase there are problems with gangs in Lexington, why o we have to get racial and say illegals all the time, Lexington is not the only place there are illegal aliens and they are not the cause of all the problems, WHY does everyone want to crucify hispanics they have just as much right to provide fo their families as we all do, They pay taxes just like everyone else. Everytime someone leaves a comment about ths issue the barley say anything but blame the illegals, get over yourselves your not any better than us.
Wannabe gang bangers are the worst kind to have because they are looking to prove themselves in the eyes of the gang. They will do whatever is necessary to be seen as legit. Not to mention a lot of the gangs we do have were started by gang bangers transplanted from places like Chicago and other larger cities. Not only that, gang membership is not exclusive to illegal immigrants. Look at the ring leader in this case, he looks like a white boy to me… Strange that a white man would be the leader of a Latino gang… Don’t be fooled to think that just because they are called a certain name that all the members are only of that race. Gang cross racial lines and socioeconomic status.
First of all gangs are located all over the country including big cities like Chicago and small towns like Versailles. To icrease their memebership a gang must branch out to new territory such as Lexington. I am from Chicago and have seen gangs in both cities and the only difference is the amount of gang memebers located in the cities. So the term “wanna be” does not apply here because the two men are associated with the Latin Kings. Second not all illegal aliens pay taxes. They are not citizens so they are not all documented and are most of the time payed under the table.
Gangs, there are everywhere big cities, small towns everywhere you look you see gangs. What can we do, the cops can’t do anything so what do we think we can do? Here in Missouri we have the same problem and a lot of people have their CCW, we fight fire with fire