Reputed Huntington street gang member sentenced to 20 years for kidnapping, gang assault of teen at abandoned Pilgrim State building

A reputed member of a Huntington street gang was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Thursday for the kidnapping, gang beating and robbery of a teenager last year in an abandoned psychiatric facility.

Josue "Shrek" Zepeda Padilla, 28, of Huntington Station, pleaded guilty in July to luring the boy to the Huntington LIRR station with 4 other members of the MS-13-affiliated street gang — the Huntington Criminal Locates Salvatrucha — on Jan. 6, 2024.

At the train station, prosecutors said the group surrounded the 15-year-old, took his money and then piled on, punching and kicking him on the ground.

The group, including Zepeda Padilla, then forced the teen into a car and drove him to the defunct Pilgrim Psychiatric Center in Brentwood where they put a hood over his head, dragged him to an abandoned building and continued their assault, according to the district attorney.

Authorities said that Zepeda Padilla and his crew beat the youth repeatedly, bashed him with a rock and stabbed him multiple times in the neck, leaving him unconscious before they fled.

The boy survived the attack and when he regained consciousness, he was able to make it out of the building to a nearby road, where he collapsed, prosecutors said.

A passerby found him and called for help.

The teenager was taken to a local hospital, where doctors performed a craniotomy for bleeding on the brain. He was also treated for a fractured skull and ultimately recovered. 

"This coordinated attack nearly cost a child his life. This defendant and his associates showed no mercy when they brutally assaulted, kidnapped, and left a 15-year-old unconscious in an abandoned building," Suffolk District Attorney Raymond Tierney said in a news release.

Zepeda Padilla fled to North Carolina following the attack and hid out until March when the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force tracked him down around Winston-Salem, where he was arrested and returned to Long Island in April.

On July 3, he pleaded guilty to first-degree gang assault, first-degree assault, robbery and kidnapping in the second degree.

Anthony Rutkowski, Zepeda Padilla’s lawyer, did not respond to a request for comment.

One other reputed gang member, Brayan "Gucci" Jimenez Avila, who also took part in the attack, pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Co-defendants Maycoll "Pirata" Ramirez Cerrato, Marcos "Jero" Serpos, Maybelline Garcia Cornejo and Henry Lemus Nieto have also pleaded guilty in the gang assault and are awaiting sentencing.