Bronx DA secures additional plea deals in Junior case
THE BRONX (PIX11) --- Danilo Payamps Pacheco, who was seen getting out of a car that was chasing Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz in 2018, pleaded guilty Wednesday to the lesser charge of manslaughter in the first degree.
The decision allows Payamps Pacheco, now 26, to avoid a murder trial that could have carried a 25 year to life sentence upon conviction. He's been in jail since July 2018, when he turned himself in to police.
Assistant Bronx District Attorney Morgan Dolan told Judge Ralph Fabrizio the deal involved "12 years incarceration, followed by five years post release supervision."
The Bronx District Attorney's office was hoping to secure plea deals from all six of the last defendants, but it didn't seem likely that would happen. Danel Fernandez, who was allegedly captured on surveillance pulling Junior from behind a bodega counter and dragging him out to the sidewalk, refused to plea bargain for a prison sentence of 18 years. He will go on trial for murder in January 2023.
Though Fernandez refused, Payamps Pacheco is not the only one to take a deal in the case, which made international headlines when Trinitarios gang members were captured on surveillance chasing and killing the teen in the Belmont section of the Bronx. On Nov. 16, defendant Jose Tavarez quietly pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the first degree and a gun charge in exchange for a 15 year sentence.
Prosecutors have already won convictions in the first trial, in 2019, against the five men who stabbed "Junior." The pandemic delayed the second trial by more than two years, with two gang leaders of the Los Sures set convicted in 2022 for ordering Trinitarios members to hunt rivals. Police said Junior was a victim of mistaken identity.
Danilo Payamps Pacheco wore glasses and a beard when he appeared in court Wednesday, dressed in a crisp white T-shirt and orange, prison pants. He expressed concerns, through his attorney, about not wanting to cut his hair when he goes to state prison.
Judge Fabrizio asked him, "Did you, acting in concert with other individuals, with intent to cause serious physical injury, cause the death of Lesandro "Junior" Guzman-Feliz by stabbing him about his neck and body?"
Even though Payamps Pacheco hesitated in his response, he replied "yes."
Payamps Pacheco did not stab the teenager on the night of June 20, 2018. But his guilty plea Wednesday was an admission that he was part of the gang that chased Junior, with the intent to seriously hurt him, a chase that resulted in the teenager's brutal death.