Wannabe MS-13 gangster gets 45 years for killing Queens teen

A wannabe gangster who savagely killed a Queens teenager to gain entry into MS-13 has been sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Juan Amaya-Ramirez was just 20 in 2018 when he and others beat, stabbed and choked 17-year-old Andy Peralta in Kissena Park in Flushing, mistakenly thinking he was in a rival gang and that killing him would earn them a spot MS-13’s ranks.

The killer, known by the sinister nickname “Cadaver,” then took a selfie flashing MS-13 gang signs over Peralta’s mangled and lifeless body and frequently bragged about the murder afterwards, prosecutors said.

Judge Lashann DeArcy Hall blasted Amaya-Ramirez’s lawyer at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing in Brooklyn for attempting to downplay his client’s involvement in the brutal murder, which he pleaded guilty to last year.

The attorney, Richard Palma, had argued that Amaya-Ramirez was “the least culpable of his codefendants” and called his attempts at choking Peralta “half-hearted,” according to a sentencing request for filed last month.

“It is mind-blowing to this court that you could argue that, when that young man died of strangulation, and your client strangled him,” Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Lashann DeArcy Hall said Tuesday, the New York Daily News reported.

“He put his hands around his throat, and he strangled him to death,” she added — before handing Amaya-Ramirez a 45-year sentence, far more than the 30 years his defense had sought.

Amaya-Ramirez, now 28, used his then-17-year-old girlfriend, Leyla Carranza, to lure Peralta to the park with the fake promise of a romantic encounter.

Instead, he and co-defendants Oscar Flores-Mejia and Juan Lazo Villa ambushed Peralta, brutally beating him as Amayra-Ramirez choked him, prosecutors said in their sentencing memorandum.

As the teenager screamed with his final breaths, Flores-Mejia shoved dirt in his mouth, stabbed him in the back with a kitchen knife and slashed off his chest a crown tattoo that they mistakenly thought was a symbol of a rival gang.

They then took a selfie flashing MS-13 gang signs over Peralta’s bloodied and lifeless body before leaving him face-down in the mud. His body was later discovered by a hiker.

“Of all the conspirators, [Amaya-Ramirez] appeared to take the greatest pride in the murder, repeatedly bragging about the killing to MS-13 members he met and showing off the photograph of Peralta’s mutilated body that he kept on his phone as a trophy,” prosecutors said. 

“He used the murder to advance himself within MS-13, and to this day he has done nothing to move away from the gang.”

Amaya Ramirez and Flores-Mejiua pleaded guilty to the murder in September 2024. Flores-Mejiia is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday. 

Carranza is currently serving a 22-year sentence for her role in the killing.