A Gaithersburg man was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in federal prison for his role in an October 2016 gang-related murder, federal prosecutors announced.
Reynaldo Alexis Granados-Vasquez, 23, was sentenced for conspiracy to kidnap in connection with the murder of Jordy Mejia.
The sentencing marks the third and final judgement relating to the death of Mejia, who was lured to a wooded area in Germantown and drowned in a stream, prosecutors said. Co-defendants Neris Moreno-Martinez, 22, and Jose Israel Melendez-Rivera, 21, were sentenced to 30 and 20 years in prison, respectively.
“With today’s sentence, three MS-13 members and associates will now be prevented from inflicting any further harm on our community for years to come,” U.S. Attorney Robert K. Hur said in a statement.
Granada-Vasquez admitted to conspiring with Moreno-Martinez and Melendez-Rivera to trick Mejia into traveling from New Jersey to Maryland under the guise of meeting a woman, prosecutors said.
Moreno-Martinez wanted to rise up the ranks within the MS-13 gang by participating in a murder, but believed he couldn’t discretely dispose of a body in his native New Jersey, so he directed the victim to Maryland using a fake social media account, prosecutors said.
Granados-Vasquez admitted that he traveled with Melendez-Rivera and Moreno-Martinez to the wooded area, prosecutors said. After Melendez-Rivera and Moreno-Martinez drowned Mejia, the three men carried the body to a shallow grave and took turns stabbing the corpse with machetes.
Charlie Wright can be reached at charlie.wright@moco360.media
