An MS-13 gang member was sentenced to 40 years in prison for two Long Island murders in 2012 and helping to plan a third murder in Maryland while in prison.

Melvin Marquez-Sanchez, 22, previously pleaded guilty in the murder of Douglas Martinez in Brentwood on Aug. 25, 2012 and Joe Vallejo in Hempstead on Sept. 8, 2012.

Federal prosecutors say Martinez was a former leader of MS-13 and that Vallejo belonged to a rival gang.

The indictment from Maryland involved a conspiracy to kill someone in 2013.

Prosecutors said in court that Marquez-Sanchez committed the Long Island murders just days after his 18th birthday to prove himself to the gang.

Marquez-Sanchez said in court that he “was a soldier of the Mara Salvatrucha.”

“Whatever sentence you give me on this day, I will welcome it, whatever it is,” he said.

"He's willing to accept that 40 years is the price he has to pay for what he did," says Marquez-Sanchez's attorney Marin Geduldig. "I don't think he was proud of it. He was just recognizing what he had done."

Geduldig told News 12 that his client came to the U.S. illegally when he was 16 years old. He will be deported to El Salvador after serving his sentence in federal prison.