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LOS ANGELES (CNS) - Two Southland residents were sentenced to federal prison terms today for conspiring to kidnap people trying to cross the U.S.- Mexico border, then demanding and collecting ransom payments from their relatives.
Edgar Adrian Hernandez Lemus, 23, of the Central-Alameda neighborhood in Los Angeles, was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison by U.S. District Judge John F. Walter. At a separate hearing, Walter sentenced Junior Almendarez Martinez, 23, of Watts, to 24 months imprisonment, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.
After a three-day jury trial in November, Lemus was found guilty of one count of conspiracy and two counts of receiving money from a ransom demand for the release of a kidnapped person. Almendarez was found guilty of two counts of receiving money from a ransom demand for the release of a kidnapped person.
Prosecutors said Lemus and Martinez offered to help smuggle victims into the United States from Mexico, but would then hold them for ransom and demand payments from their families. The pair would arrange to meet the victims' families at various Walmart and other stores in Southern California to collect the ransom payments, often demanding additional money when the meetings occurred.
The ransom demands ranged from $12,000 to $30,000 in cash. Lemus and Martinez would eventually share some of the ransom funds with co-conspirators in Mexico via MoneyGram.
``During this scheme, numerous victims were subjected to horrific abuse,'' prosecutors wrote. ``The horror of the kidnappings and ransom payment is a trauma that these victims will never forget.''
A co-defendant and fellow ransom collector, Francisco Javier Hernandez Martinez, 21, of the Central-Alameda neighborhood, pleaded guilty in September to one count of conspiracy and was sentenced to 40 months in federal prison.