Two males had been sentenced to 4 a long time in jail this week for kidnapping a 17-year-old boy from an Olive Backyard parking zone in Philadelphia and demanding $500,000 ransom from his dad and mom.
Eduardo Castelan-Prado, 39, and Jose Reyes Ochoa, 32, had been ordered on Tuesday to serve 40 years in federal jail plus 5 years of supervised launch, FOX29 reported.
The duo had been convicted of kidnapping and conspiracy to commit a kidnapping in June.
Prosecutors had introduced harrowing proof of the pair’s half within the brutal kidnapping of a 17-year-old from an Olive Backyard parking zone in June 2021.
The sufferer, who stays nameless, testified earlier than the jury that Castelan-Prado, Ochoa and their third co-conspirator, Rodrigo Rodriguez-Gonzalez, grabbed him at gunpoint whereas he was counting suggestions in his automobile.
The boys blindfolded him and compelled him to spend the evening in a cardboard field earlier than driving two hours north to Castelan-Prado’s dwelling on the Lakeview Residences in Leonia, New Jersey. The abductors allegedly used the sufferer’s unlocked telephone to get his dad and mom’ telephone numbers, and began making ransom calls for for $500,000 from them.
The teenager’s father, Waldis Santana, allegedly owed the group cash associated to a drug cartel, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The sufferer later testified that he heard the lads on the telephone with somebody in Mexico who stated they need to begin slicing off his fingers if his dad and mom didn't pay.
Authorities ultimately tracked the ransom calls to the residence complicated. Rodriguez-Gonzalez was killed in a shootout with police earlier than the teenager was rescued on June 16.
Proof on the scene later proved that the trio stalked Santana and his household for weeks, going as far as to put a tracker in his automobile.
“The seriousness of this offense can't be understated,” Assistant US Attorneys Justin Oshana and Katherine Shulman stated in courtroom filings previous to the sentencing.
“The sufferer endured 36 hours of terror that solely got here to an finish due to the actions of regulation enforcement.”
In the meantime, Ochoa legal professional Peter J. Scuderi tried to pin a number of the blame on the sufferer’s household, saying Santana’s involvement within the drug commerce was what positioned his son in danger.
US District Choose Harvey Bartle III refused to contemplate Scuderi’s argument, calling the crime “completely heinous and reprehensible.”
“It’s very lucky that this younger man is alive to inform the story,” he concluded.
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