Teen gets 10 years for murder

AMANDA STEWART / Stafford County Sun
Published: March 27, 2008

Michael Angel Ayala, 17, of 83 Vista Woods in Stafford, pleaded guilty in December to voluntary manslaughter and criminal gang participation in the November 2006 murder of 21-year-old Charles Angelos Jr., who was stabbed to death behind a row of town houses on Portwood Turn in the Manassas area.

On March 20, Prince William Circuit Court Judge Lon E. Farris sentenced Ayala to 10 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter. An additional 10-year sentence for criminal gang participation was suspended.

Farris also sentenced Ayala to five years probation after his release and to refrain from any contact with gang members.

Ayala was one of five men charged in Angelos' death.

During the October trial of one of the other men, Ayala testified that he was part of the group that chased and killed Angelos. He also testified that he and the other men acted as part of the criminal street gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

Prosecutors have said that the men went to Angelos' house on the night of Nov. 16, 2006, looking for marijuana.

Angelos and his roommate said they didn't have any and the men got angry and broke a sliding glass door at Angelos' house before leaving to return to a party in the Portwood Turn area, prosecutors said.

Angelos, his roommate and a neighbor followed the men back to the party to confront them.

Ayala and other men in the house grabbed knives and chased Angelos, who had been separated from his friends behind a row of town houses.

There they kicked and stabbed Angelos to death, police said. Ayala inflicted some of the fatal stab wounds, police and prosecutors said.

During the October trial of Marvin Alexis Rodriguez-Barrera, one of Ayala's codefendants, Ayala testified that he did not remember if he stabbed Angelos, but said his hands and sweat pants were covered in blood.

Rodriguez-Barrera was convicted of first-degree murder and criminal gang participation and was sentenced in January to 40 years in prison.

Three other men were also charged for Angelos' death.

Elias Isaac Quinteros-Soriano, 29, pleaded guilty in July to charges of criminal gang participation, destruction of property and grand larceny and was sentenced to six months in jail.

Salvador Mauricio Elias Miranda, 25, pleaded guilty in June to a misdemeanor charge of assault and battery and was deported.

Another man, Santos Espinosa-Reyes, is scheduled to enter a plea in Prince William Circuit Court this week. He is charged with first-degree murder, criminal gang participation, grand larceny and destruction of property.

Amanda Stewart is a staff reporter for Media General's Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger.

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