WHITE PLAINS – A member of the Yonkers faction of the violent Trinitarios gang was sentenced in federal court on Wednesday to 30 years in prison for his participation in a racketeering conspiracy and in the murder of a Ka’Shawn Phillips, 16, on September 5, 2005.
Juan Martinez, 42, also known as KJ, who was 30 at the time of the crime, was involved in a fistfight with Phillips at a pickup basketball game in Yonkers. Martinez retaliated first by attacking Phillips with a machete, and then by enlisting members of the Bronx faction of the gang to attack the victim. Armed with guns, knives and swords, a mob of Trinitarios gang members shot, beat and stabbed Phillips to death.
Since 2009 as part of “Operation Patria” and “Operation Green Haze,” the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has charged at least a combined 149 members and associates of the Trinitarios gang.
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