Trial set for MS-13 associate charged in deaths of 4 men

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. (AP) — A federal jury will hear opening statements next week in the trial of a Long Island woman accused of luring four young men to their slaughter by more than a dozen members of the MS-13 street gang. The racketeering trial of Leniz Escobar begins Monday on Long Island. Prosecutors say she helped orchestrate the 2017 massacre as a teenage associate of the gang. Escobar has pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges in the four deaths that prosecutors described as “a horrific frenzy of violence” involving machetes, knives and tree limbs. A message was sent to her attorney seeking comment.