Virginia Man Pleads Guilty in Columbus MS-13 Murder

A Virginia man has admitted his part in a brutal 2015 gangland killing that federal prosecutors say exemplifies the violent reach of MS-13 on American soil. Jose Daniel Gonzalez-Campos (a/k/a Flaco), 31, pleaded guilty in federal court in Columbus, Ohio, to participating in a racketeering conspiracy on behalf of the transnational criminal organization MS-13, directly tying him to the murder of 17-year-old Wilson Villeda.

Gonzalez-Campos accepted responsibility for his role in the November 2015 attack that left Villeda, a high school student, dead from multiple stab wounds. According to court documents, MS-13 members and associates ambushed the teen with bladed weapons before dumping his body in a shallow grave in the woods of Innis Park. The killing was not random—it was a calculated act of gang enforcement, prosecutors say.

The plea comes as part of a sweeping federal case targeting MS-13’s underground network in central Ohio. Gonzalez-Campos is the eighteenth of 23 defendants charged in a February 2018 second superseding indictment to plead guilty. The racketeering conspiracy includes five murders, attempted murder, extortion, drug trafficking, money laundering, witness intimidation, and weapons offenses—all carried out under the banner of MS-13.

Documents detail a pattern of extreme violence: the December 2006 killing of suspected informant Jose Mendez in Perry County; the 2008 murder of Ramon Ramos on Lockbourne Road; the mid-2015 slaying of rival gang member Carlos Serrano-Ramos near Innis Road; and the December 2016 murder of Salvador Martinez-Diaz on Melroy Avenue. Machetes, hammers, and knives were routinely used to execute victims.

Prosecutors, led by Deputy Criminal Chief Brian J. Martinez and Assistant U.S. Attorney Noah R. Litton, have agreed with defense counsel to recommend a 30-year prison sentence for Gonzalez-Campos. He will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus, Jr. at a later date, avoiding a trial but facing decades behind bars for his allegiance to one of the most feared street gangs in the Western Hemisphere.

The case was announced by David M. DeVillers, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio; Chris Hoffman, FBI Special Agent in Charge; Rebecca Adducci, ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations Detroit Field Director; Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin; and Columbus Police Chief Thomas Quinlan. The coordinated takedown underscores the federal government’s ongoing push to dismantle MS-13 cells operating across the Midwest.

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