Editor’s note: This article, originally published at 5:51 p.m. on Feb. 21, 2025, was updated at 10:47 a.m. on Feb. 24, 2025, to add comments from Elvin Guzman-Machado’s attorney.
A Boyds man was sentenced Friday to life plus an additional 40 years in prison for his role in a fatal November 2022 shooting in Silver Spring, the Montgomery State’s Attorney’s Office said Friday afternoon in a statement.
The Nov. 9, 2022, shooting resulted in the death of 19-year-old Willians Anderson Alberto Cruz of Hyattsville. Two other victims who were injured in the shooting survived, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
Judge Terrence McGann sentenced Elvin Guzman-Machado in Montgomery County Circuit Court in Rockville.
Alan Drew, Guzman-Machado’s attorney, said in an email to Bethesda Today on Saturday afternoon that they plan to appeal the conviction.
“I believe the evidence didn’t support his conviction for the crimes which the jury found Mr. Guzman-Machado guilty and he maintains his innocence,” Drew said.
The sentencing came three weeks after McGann sentenced two other co-defendants – Elmer Lopez-Cortez, 26, of Silver Spring and Junior Francisco Del-Cid, 21, of Takoma Park – to multiple life sentences without the possibility of parole. Each received four consecutive life sentences and another 105 years in prison.
In August, Lopez-Cortez, Del-Cid and Guzman-Machado were convicted by a jury on charges of first-degree murder, three counts of attempted first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and four counts of use of a firearm during a crime of violence. In addition, the three men were convicted of participation in a criminal organization resulting in death, the first conviction of its kind in the county, according to the state’s attorney’s office.
According to the state’s attorney’s office, Guzman-Machado waited in a get-away car as the shooting of Cruz occurred.
A fourth co-defendant, Jonathan Leon-Chacon, 26, of Silver Spring is set to go to trial on murder, attempted murder, firearm use and participation in a criminal organization on June 16, according to the digital court records. He was also in the get-away car, the state’s attorney’s office said.
After the Jan. 31 sentencings of Lopez-Cortez and Del-Cid, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said the men’s sentences were “well-deserved.” He noted the men were members of a “very, very active” section of the La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang operating in the New Hampshire Avenue area of Langley Park.
The county’s homicide and gang unit and a “cross-border regional gang task force” were involved in the investigation of the shooting, which led to the identification and arrests of the individuals in the case, McCarthy said.
The fatal shooting
According to county police, officers responded before 4 a.m. Nov. 9, 2022, for a report of shots fired in the 100 block of Colony Road. Responding officers found three men suffering from gunshot wounds at the scene. Cruz was found with multiple gunshot wounds in a wooded area nearby, according to police. He was pronounced dead at the scene. The two other victims were hit multiple times but survived.
The group of victims had been standing around a vehicle and listening to music before they were shot at, according to the state’s attorney’s office. The defendants and the victims didn’t know each other.
County police identified Del-Cid, Lopez-Cortez and Guzman-Machado as members of MS-13, the statement said. According to the state’s attorney’s office, the motive for the shooting was retribution for defacing gang graffiti in a forested area next to the parking lot where the shooting occurred.
Once Del-Cid, Lopez-Cortez and Guzman-Machado became convinced the three men were responsible for the defacing, Del-Cid and Lopez-Cortez opened fire on the victims while Guzman-Machado and Leon-Chacon waited in the getaway vehicle, according to the statement.
Ashlyn Campbell contributed to this report.
