Man gets 37-year sentence for kidnapping FBI employee in South Dakota

2024-12-25 10:25:04 source: category:Scams

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — One of three people convicted of carjacking and kidnapping an FBI employee in South Dakota has been sentenced to 37 years in prison.

Juan Alvarez-Sorto, 25, was sentenced Friday in federal court, the Rapid City Journal reported. Alvarez-Sorto and Deyvin Morales, 29, were found guilty in January. Alvarez-Sorto also was convicted of unlawfully entering the U.S. after being deported to his home country, El Salvador.

A third suspect, 29-year-old Karla Lopez-Gutierrez, pleaded guilty in August. Morales and Lopez-Gutierrez are both scheduled for sentencing April 26.

Prosecutors said the trio left Greeley, Colorado, on May 5, 2022, and were on a “drug trafficking trip” to South Dakota in a Ford Expedition. Nearly out of gas at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Morales told the others they needed to “take over” a new vehicle, Lopez-Gutierrez testified in January.

A short time later, the FBI employee speeding in his Dodge Durango saw the Expedition and pulled over, believing it was a tribal officer. Prosecutors said the suspects took the Durango at gunpoint and forced the victim to go along.

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“I’m still haunted by the trauma you inflicted upon me,” the victim told Alvarez-Sorto at the sentencing hearing. He said Alvarez-Sorto threatened his family and held a gun to the back of his head as he was face-down in the Badlands.

When the group stopped to buy gas and zip ties in the town of Hermosa, South Dakota, the victim managed to escape.

Morales and Alvarez-Sorto were arrested in Greeley a week later. Lopez-Gutierrez was arrested in August 2022 in Loveland, Colorado.

Alvarez-Sorto’s attorney, Alecia Fuller, said his client was remorseful and noted that relatives had abused Alvarez-Sorto as a child.

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