Gang leader Kayla Alvarenga ordered man killed outside her Bay Shore home, prosecutor says

A Central Islip man was intoxicated and looking for a place to sleep when he parked his car outside the home of the young leader of a fast-rising Bay Shore street gang, setting off a series of events that led her to order his execution, prosecutors alleged during opening statements at a criminal trial in Riverhead on Monday.

Kayla Alvarenga, 23, is charged with murder and kidnapping for the 2022 carjacking and killing of Linver Ortiz Ponce, who prosecutors say was a stranger to the defendant and members of the "Family Over Everything, Everybody Killed" gang who will testify against her at trial before acting State Supreme Court Justice Anthony Senft this month.

"FOEEBK ... those are the initials of the gang, of the street crew, that was put together around 2021 by one person," Suffolk County District Attorney Homicide Bureau Chief Timothy Gough said of Alvarenga. "She required loyalty, obedience, respect. And on Sept. 17, 2022, they listened to her directives when she called them and let them know ‘Somebody’s parked outside my house. Come here.’"

Gough said the gang’s members, mostly teenage co-defendants who have entered into cooperating agreements with prosecutors, dragged Ortiz Ponce, 29, out of his red Camaro, kicked and punched him and drove off in his car on the night of the killing. When he ran from the scene, Alvarenga, apparently worried he might identify the group, set out with the other members to find him, the prosecutor said.

When Ortiz Ponce was located attempting to hide outside a Bay Shore gas station, Alvarenga asked them to take him and follow her to a nearby church parking lot. It was there she gave the final order to a then-23-year-old Christopher Perdomo, Gough said.

"It was a very simple command," the prosecutor alleged. "Kill him."

Perdomo, who had been staying in a room in the same Fifth Avenue home as Alvarenga, will admit to firing four shots from a 380 Hi-Point semiautomatic pistol when he takes the stand at trial, the prosecutor said. In exchange for his testimony, he will probably be sentenced to 20 years to life in prison on a second-degree murder charge, Gough said.

Five additional defendants in the case, who were all 16 or 17 years old at the time of the killing, are expected to testify that they were drawn to the 20-year-old Alvarenga, who lived with her younger sister in a house with no adult supervision.  Gough said the property became a magnet for wayward teens from Bay Shore who went there to smoke marijuana and play video games free from adult supervision. Soon, a "surrogate family" began to form and the gang took shape, the prosecutors said, with initiation beatings taking place in her backyard. 

Alvarenga was often worried about people watching her from outside the home and Ortiz Ponce, who had been out drinking with friends who urged him not to drive home the night of the killing, had the misfortune of choosing the wrong place to park his car to "rest his eyes," Gough said. 

 Prosecutors said evidence at trial will also show the other members of the gang had set out terrorizing people around Suffolk County the evening of the killing and in months prior, including a 2021 killing for which several of them were charged separately. On the night of the Ortiz Ponce killing, the crew first sought to rob a drug dealer who didn’t show up, Gough said. They later attempted to steal a bag from a woman leaving Jake’s 58 Casino in Islandia, but she fought them off, the prosecutor told the jury. 

They arrived at Alvarenga’s house, when she reached out, concerned about Ortiz Ponce’s presence outside her home, in a BMW they stole in an unrelated carjacking, the prosecutor alleged.

Gough said each of the defendants was armed with a gun, and one was carrying a hammer when they corralled Ortiz Ponce into the BMW outside the gas station.

"Please don’t hurt me," Gough said the victim told his abductors.

Perdomo is alleged to have pistol-whipped Ortiz Ponce several times before the shooting.  Blood matching Ortiz Ponce was found inside the BMW, which police located in Kings Park the following day. A majority of DNA found on the steering wheel and driver’s seat of the Camaro when it was located in Smithtown, was matched to Alvarenga, Gough said. 

Ortiz Ponce's body was found in the church parking lot soon after the shooting, when police received a 911 call from a woman who heard the shots.

Defense attorney Jonathan Manley, of Hauppauge, said the woman’s testimony should cause doubt among the jurors, saying she initially told police she heard someone with a "very deep voice" order the hit.

When the witness took the stand Monday afternoon, she told the jury she was looking to go to sleep shortly after midnight the day of the shooting when she heard someone mumble, "Drop him here. Drop him here," followed by the sound of four gunshots.

Asked by Assistant District Attorney Sheetal Shetty about the voice she heard, the witness said only that it was "deep." Pressed by Manley, the woman, who has since moved out of state, said she could not say with certainty if she heard a man or a woman.

Manley called it "preposterous" that a 20-year-old female would be ordering around male gang members, including the older Perdomo, who he alleged has ties to the MS-13 gang. The defense attorney said the co-defendants were offered "decades off" their sentences by prosecutors looking to portray Alvarenga as the ringleader.

"They want you to believe she’s Charles Manson," Manley said of his client, who he said has denied being involved in the killing since she was indicted in 2024.

 A break in the case came when one co-defendant in the earlier homicide case, which involved an armed home invasion, began to cooperate with detectives, prosecutors said. The then-teenager told detectives he heard Alvarenga admit to her involvement in another killing.

Another teen also agreed to cooperate after he was charged with a DWI and his fingerprints matched those found on the stolen BMW where Ortiz Ponce was beaten.

Prosecutors said cellphone records will show the movement of the male co-defendants that evening and their communication with Alvarenga each step of the way. 

Gough said a notebook found inside Alvarenga's home had the initials of the gang on the front of it and contained details about their activities. She also tracked the movement of members by linking their phones and often threatened anyone who fell out of line, including ordering a drive-by shooting at the home of a family member of one co-defendant, the prosecutor said.

"She detailed their missions, their failures, digressions that anybody had," Gough told the jury. "Family over everything."

The trial will continue with more witness testimony Tuesday. 

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.