Gangster Receives Life Sentence for Gaithersburg Murder

A Germantown man was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the kidnapping and killing of a teen boy and another man’s shooting death, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced Monday.

U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus sentenced Joel “Clon” Ventura Quintanilla, 25, to life plus five years of supervised release for conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise in connection with his membership in the 18th Street gang.

According to his plea agreement:

On Jan. 18, 2009, Dennys Alfredo Guzman-Saenz, 15, was forced into a car in Langley Park, Md., and driven to a park in Gaithersburg, where he was stabbed and beaten to death; his body found in a park creek the next morning.

On Feb. 8, 2009, two men were shot outside a CiCi’s Pizza in Washington; one of the victims, Manuel Garcia-Fuentes, died from his wounds.

Quintanilla was reportedly an active member of the 18th Street gang from 2007 to 2009. 

The 18th Street gang originated in the Los Angeles area and operates in Central America and across the United States, including Maryland, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.

Quintanilla “mistakenly" thought the murder victims "belonged to rival gangs,” U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement.