Justice For Junior: 5 killers to spend their lives in prison
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People come out to honor Junior at the corner of East 183rd Street and
Bathgate Avenue on Thursday, August 20. Schneps Media/ Alex Mitchell
BY ALEX MITCHELL
Justice for Junior has
been served.
Five conspirators in
the murder of 15-year-old
Lesandro ‘Junior’ Guzman-
Feliz were found guilty on
Friday, June 14. Jonaiki Martinez
Estrella, Antonio Rodriguez,
Hernandez Santiago,
Manuel Rivera, Jose Muniz
and Elvin Garcia were found
guilty of fi rst-degree Murder,
second-degree Murder, second
degree Conspiracy and
second-degree Gang Assault,
the Bronx District Attorney’s
offi ce confi rmed almost
a year after the Wednesday,
June 20, 2018 attack.
Court proceedings in
the gruesome case began on
Thursday, October 25. That’s
when Junior’s parents, Leandra
Feliz and Lesandro Guzman
fi rst went face-to-face
with their son’s alleged ruthless
killers in the beginning
of the grueling process.
After what police said to
be a case of mistaken identity
on a gang ordered stabbing,
surveillance video
showed Junior running into
a bodega, attempting to hide
behind the counter. When
the worker attempts to hide
the boy, the gang members
come into the store and drag
him out to the street. The
travesty unfolded on the corner
of East 183rd Street and
Bathgate Avenue, which is
now named after the fallen
NYPD Explorer.
After the senseless knife
and machete attack, Junior
runs back in the store where
the people there advise him to
seek medical attention at St.
Barnabas Hospital, a block
away. Mortally wounded he
collapses, and dies before he
can get help.
Some neighbors watched
the attack unfold from their
apartments above.
“We heard ‘Open up!
They’re going to murder me!’
and by the time we saw what
was going on from our window,
it was all over. The entire
attack was less than ten
seconds,” one neighbor said.
Higher-ups in the gang
that is being blamed for the
horrendous attack have taken
to social media to claim the
attack wasn’t meant for Guzman
Feliz and even went to
the extent of expressing condolences
to his family.
Images and videos from
the mistaken, rapid murder
had been played throughout
the near fi ve-week trial for
the accused killers, which
caused Leandra to sob repeatedly
in the Bronx Hall of
Justice.
“They left me dead and my
heart broken,” she emotionally
said in Spanish after an
earlier court hearing.
The five will be sentenced
on Tuesday, July 16 and are
likely to do life in prison
with no opportunity for parole.
“I just need justice for my
son,” Junior’s Mother Leandra
Feliz told supporters.
The DA is considering
to leverage plea deals to the
eight additional accused accomplices
in Junior’s case in
an effort to reach the roots of
the gang responsible for his
death.
Frederick Then, Ronald
Urena, Jose Tavarez, Danel
Fernandez, Gabriel Ramirez
Concepcion, Diego Suero, Danilo
Payamps Pacheco and
Luis Caberasantos, face second
degree murder charges
for involvement with cornering
Junior into the infamous
bodega.
Pre-trial for those eight is
expected to begin on Monday,
September 23.
At the time of the murder,
the accused were rounded
up by police quickly from an
overwhelming fl ood of amateur
footage and tips that
they received within hours
of Junior’s death.
This case also served as
the inspiration for the Bronx
DA’s offi ce to create its new
camera-sharing program,
which creates an intranet of
security cameras to help prevent
another teen sharing
the same unfortunate fate of
Junior.
They left me
dead and my heart
broken. I just need
justice for my son
Leandra Feliz
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