A murder suspect allegedly part of the MS-13 Gang apparently openly operated a drywall service business for the past several years in The Villages.
Jose Ezequiel Gamez-Maravilla was named Friday in a press conference held by Attorney General Pam Bondi in which she announced the arrests of the MS-13 Gang members.
Gamez-Maravilla is tied to brutal murders which took place more than a decade ago in South Florida, when he would have been a teenager.
Gamez-Maravilla, now 29 and listing a Center Hill address in Sumter County, was arrested in March by FBI agents and booked at the Marion County Jail.
A day after his arrest, Gamez-Maravilla appeared before Magistrate Judge Philip Lamens in U.S. Middle District Court in Ocala.
“After hearing the evidence, and based on the defendant’s waiver of identity hearing, I find that Jose Ezequiel Gamez-Maravilla is the person named in the warrant for arrest,” Lamens declared as a result of the hearing.
A court document noted that an interpreter was used to assist Gamez-Maravilla during the hearing.
Gamez-Maravilla remains in federal custody, according to Bondi and other law enforcement officers who spoke in Friday’s press conference.
In 2022, Gamez-Maravilla, who apparently rebranded himself as “Jose Gamez,” moved to Center Hill in Sumter County and founded Revolution Repair LLC. For more than three years, he has offered drywall repair, painting and water damage repair to clients, mainly in The Villages. He sought business through NextDoor, a popular online site in Florida’s Friendliest Hometown. His website includes a testimonial from a Villager who boasted about his work.