Ever Flores sentenced to more than 26 years for MS-13 machete killing of Dewann Stacks in 2016

An MS-13 member who admitted taking part in the 2016 killing of a man on a residential street in Brentwood was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Central Islip to more than 26 years in prison.

Ever Flores, 30, told U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown that he regretted the pain he caused victim Dewann Stacks’ relatives and his own family. He said he was traumatized by the violence he witnessed in his native El Salvador and was abusing drugs and alcohol when he attacked Stacks with a machete.

Flores’ attorney Susan Marcus told Brown that the defendant was naive when he moved to the United States and joined the gang infamous for attacking victims with machetes and baseball bats.

“I’m not happy with what I did,” Flores told Brown, who sentenced the suspect to 322 months in prison.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Scotti said Flores showed bloodlust, not naivety, when he attacked Stacks with a machete on American Boulevard in what the prosecutor called “a frenzy of violence.” Scotti said Flores and other gang members hit Stacks in the face and head with such force that he was almost unrecognizable.

“They didn’t just kill him,” Scotti said. “They did it in the most brutal and gruesome way imaginable.”

Flores pleaded guilty to racketeering on October 21, 2021. His sentencing was postponed for three years after Marcus requested several postponements and said in court documents that she had not been able to meet with Flores at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn due to COVID-19. lockdowns and other problems.

A source with knowledge of the case said Marcus had asked for a delay to hire mitigation experts and a producer for a video in which Flores’ teachers, principal, football coach and dance instructor spoke positively about the defendant. Marcus, the source said, did not file the sentencing materials until June.

Flores also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana, admitting that between April 2016 and October 2017, he and other members of MS-13’s Sailors cabal conspired to sell drugs to raise money for the gang.

Marcus and members of Flores’ family declined to discuss the verdict after Thursday’s hearing.

Prosecutors said Flores and other MS-13 co-conspirators drove through Central Islip and Brentwood on Oct. 13, 2016, hunting for rival gang members to attack and kill. The gang saw Stacks on American Boulevard. Believing Stacks to be a member of the rival Bloods, Flores attacked him with a machete. Two co-conspirators, one with a bat and the other with a machete, beat and hacked Stacks to death, prosecutors said.

Scotti said Stacks was not a Bloods member. “He was just a guy out walking,” the prosecutor told Brown. Stacks’ family did not attend Thursday’s sentencing.

Flores also showed a penchant for violence when he took part in the attack on two men — leaving one seriously injured — at a Brentwood taco restaurant two months after Stacks was killed, Scotti said. One of the men had disrespected MS-13, according to prosecutors.

Flores’ mother and other family members cried throughout the sentencing, sobbing as they wiped away tears with tissues.

“I love you,” he said in halting English, turning to his family. “Thank you for supporting me.”

Marcus told the judge that Flores might have been named to the Salvadoran national soccer team if his family had not decided to move to the United States. Teachers and coaches spoke positively about Flores, whom they described as a “childlike” young man, in the video the defense presented to the court.

“He’s beyond the worst thing he’s ever done,” Marcus said.

However, Scotti told Brown that Stacks’ murder and other violence committed by MS-13 spread across Long Island, causing fear in Nassau and Suffolk counties.

“This was one of the most gruesome murders I have ever seen as a prosecutor,” Scotti said, “and that says a lot about MS-13.”