Two Convicted in South Dakota for Carjacking and Kidnapping FBI Employee
Two more people were given sentences for stealing a car and kidnapping an FBI agent in South Dakota.
Rapid City, South Dakota (AP) — Twelve years in jail for the last two of the three people who carjacked and kidnapped an FBI agent in South Dakota in 2022.
The Rapid City Journal reported that Deyvin Morales, who is 29 years old, was given a 47-year prison term on Friday. The judge also gave Karla Lopez-Gutierrez, who is 29 years old, a sentence of more than 26 years in jail.
Juan Alvarez-Sorto, 25, was found guilty of the crime and given a 37-year prison sentence earlier this month.
Even though Alvarez-Sorto and Morales said they weren’t guilty of kidnapping, carjacking, and other crimes, they were found guilty in January. Alvarez-Sorto was also found guilty of illegally entering the U.S. after being sent back to El Salvador, his home country. Lopez-Gutierrez pleaded guilty to contributing to a theft and a weapons charge in August.
The victim told the judge on Friday that the attackers “showed me no mercy” before he could get away.
He said, “You already had everything of mine.” “Why did you have to take me away?”
Prosecutors said the three attackers left Greeley, Colorado, on May 5, 2022, in a Ford Expedition on a “drug trafficking trip” to South Dakota. At the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Morales told the others they needed to “take over” a new car because they were almost out of gas, Lopez-Gutierrez said in January.
Soon after, the FBI agent driving too fast in his Dodge Durango saw the Expedition and stopped because he thought it was a tribal cop. Prosecutors said the suspects forced the victim to give up the Durango and took it with a gun. The victim said Alvarez-Sorto made threats against his family and held a gun to his head while he was lying on the ground in the Badlands.
In the South Dakota town of Hermosa, where the group stopped to get gas and zip ties, the victim tried to get away. He crawled over Morales and “clawed” his way out of the car, he said at the hearing. The person fell when Morales grabbed his jacket, but he got back up. He told them he “ran like a chicken with my head cut off” to get away.
A week later, Morales and Alvarez-Sorto were caught in Greeley. The police caught Lopez-Gutierrez in Loveland, Colorado, in August 2022.
Jonathan McCoy, Morales’ lawyer, asked the judge to give Morales a sentence of 20 to 25 years. He said that Morales was given refuge in 2017 because he was being threatened with death in Guatemala by a gang.
“The punishment for deportation is death in Guatemala,” McCoy said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Jehangiri said Morales wasted “the good will of our country” by committing the crime.
“That is utterly disgusting,” Jehangiri said. “The point of asylum was to get away from gang activity, but now you’re going to gang activity.”
Lopez-Gutierrez’s lawyer also asked for a light sentence, making the case that she is a mother of three and has taken responsibility for her actions.
Lopez-Gutierrez said, “I’m sorry,” through tears at the meeting. “I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused him and his family.”
