COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A Little Village gang leader sentenced Monday to 35 year behind bars was the boss of more than 1,000 soldiers and sent boys to "kill or be killed," federal prosecutors said.
Juan Amaya, 38, previously convicted of drug trafficking and racketeering conspiracy for his role as a high-ranking leader of the Latin Kings, was sentenced to 35 years in prison Monday by U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer.
A "Regional Inca" in the Almighty Latin King Nation's 26th Street region, Amaya oversaw a vast and violent criminal operation comprising more than 1,000 gang members, prosecutors said. Many of Amaya's soldiers "were simply boys sent off to kill or be killed."
Violence that Amaya helped oversee was a plague on Little Village — the gang's key stronghold in Chicago and the region — and resulted in hundreds of shootings, prosecutors said.
Amaya was convicted by a jury in March.
A co-defendant, Nedal Issa, who held the rank of Inca in the gang's Cicero Section of the 26th Street Region, testified against him, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty last week and was sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Amaya's case is the final one arising out of an investigation that led to numerous Latin King cases dating back to 2008.
Related cases include the convictions of: Augustin Zambrano, the Latin Kings’ leader or “Corona”; “Supreme Regional Inca" Vicente Garcia; Fernando King, formerly second-in-command; and dozens of other ranking leaders.
“These sentences hold these defendants accountable for the barbaric enterprise known as the Latin Kings and for their roles in murder, attempted murder, shootings, beatings, drug trafficking, and other crimes,” said Zachary T. Fardon, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois.
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