Kayla Alvarenga ordered others to hunt down Linver Ortiz Ponce after he parked outside her home, prosecutors said.

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A Suffolk County judge sentenced Kayla Alvarenga, 23, to life in prison without parole Tuesday for directing the kidnapping and murder of a man who had parked his car outside her Bay Shore home in September 2022.

The sentence ended a case that prosecutors said began as anger over a parking spot and turned into a planned killing across several locations in Bay Shore. A jury convicted Alvarenga in March of first-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery and conspiracy in the death of Linver Ortiz Ponce, 29, of Central Islip. Prosecutors said Alvarenga did not fire the shots, but she gave the orders that moved the attack from a residential block to a gas station and then to a church parking lot.

District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney said Ortiz Ponce died because he had parked in front of the wrong house. Prosecutors said the dispute began just before midnight on Sept. 17, 2022, when Ortiz Ponce parked his red Chevrolet Camaro near Alvarenga’s home on Fifth Avenue in Bay Shore. Alvarenga confronted him and told him to move the car. When he refused, prosecutors said, she called Christopher Perdomo, 28, and several teenagers to come to the house and remove him from the area.

The crew arrived in a BMW that prosecutors said had been stolen hours earlier in a carjacking of a young woman in Bay Shore. At Alvarenga’s direction, prosecutors said, they dragged Ortiz Ponce from the Camaro while he slept, beat him and stole his car. Ortiz Ponce escaped on foot after the first attack and ran to a nearby gas station, where he tried to hide between vehicles. Prosecutors said Alvarenga and others then used both the stolen BMW and the Camaro to search for him.

Surveillance video from the gas station became a key piece of evidence at trial, prosecutors said. The video showed Ortiz Ponce being abducted at gunpoint and dragged into the BMW. Alvarenga spotted him at the gas station and gave directions to the others, prosecutors said. She then led the group to the House of Prayer Church of God, where prosecutors said the attack continued in the parking lot. On the way there, Perdomo beat Ortiz Ponce with a gun, according to the district attorney’s account.

At the church, prosecutors said, the group beat Ortiz Ponce again before Alvarenga ordered Perdomo to kill him. Ortiz Ponce tried to crawl away, but Perdomo shot him repeatedly, prosecutors said. The group then fled in both stolen vehicles. The red Camaro, the car at the center of the original dispute, was later found abandoned in a wooded area of Smithtown, about 15 miles northeast of Bay Shore. The BMW also had been tied to the earlier carjacking, prosecutors said.

The case took years to reach a final sentence for Alvarenga. Perdomo was arrested in Georgia in May 2024. He later pleaded guilty to murder, kidnapping, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon and received a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. The teenage co-defendants, who were 16 and 17 at the time of the killing, also pleaded guilty and were sentenced in separate proceedings, according to prosecutors. Their names were not fully detailed in public accounts because of their ages at the time.

Alvarenga’s conviction carried the most severe punishment available in the case. Acting Supreme Court Justice Anthony S. Senft Jr. imposed life without the possibility of parole after the jury found that she had orchestrated the killing. Prosecutors described her role as the center of the crime, saying she called the others, gave instructions after the first assault failed to keep Ortiz Ponce under control, sent them to find him, and then ordered the final shooting in the church lot.

The killing drew attention across Long Island because prosecutors said it grew from a routine act on a public street. The case also showed how fast the violence moved from one scene to another. A parked Camaro outside a home became a beating in front of a residence, a search at a gas station, an armed abduction, a ride to a church and a fatal shooting before the group abandoned vehicles in another community. Tierney said the jury saw exactly what Alvarenga did and held her responsible.

Ortiz Ponce, a Central Islip resident, was not accused of any crime in the confrontation that led to his death. Prosecutors called him innocent and said he was killed because he refused to move his vehicle. Public reports did not identify any prior relationship between him and Alvarenga. The known timeline instead points to a late-night argument outside a home, followed by a series of orders that prosecutors said Alvarenga gave after the dispute left her angry.

With Alvarenga sentenced, the major prosecutions tied to Ortiz Ponce’s death have largely moved from trial and plea stages into punishment. The record now stands with Alvarenga serving life without parole, Perdomo serving 20 years to life and the teen co-defendants sentenced after guilty pleas. Any future court action would come through post-conviction filings or appeals.

Author note: Last updated May 21, 2026.