- The last two members of a trio convicted of carjacking and kidnapping an FBI agent in Rapid City, South Dakota, have been sentenced.
- On Friday, Davin Morales, 29, was sentenced to 47 years in prison. Carla Lopez Gutierrez, also 29, was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison at the same hearing.
- A third participant in the crime, 25-year-old Juan Alvarez Salt, was sentenced earlier this month to 37 years in prison.
The last two members of the trio that carjacked and kidnapped an FBI agent in South Dakota in 2022 have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Davin Morales, 29, was sentenced Friday to 47 years in prison, the Rapid City Journal reported. At the same hearing, 29-year-old Carla Lopez Gutierrez was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison.
A third person involved in the crime, Juan Alvarez Salt, 25, was sentenced to 37 years in prison earlier this month.
South Dakota man sentenced to 37 years in prison for kidnapping FBI agent and car robbery
Alvarez-Salt and Morales had pleaded not guilty to charges including kidnapping and car burglary, but were found guilty in January. Mr. Alvarez-Solt was also convicted of illegally entering the United States after being deported to his native El Salvador. Lopez-Gutierrez pleaded guilty in August to aiding and abetting kidnapping and weapons charges.
At Friday’s hearing, the victim said his attackers were “relentless” before fleeing.
“You already had everything in me,” he said. “Why did you have to kidnap me?”
The two remaining participants in a carjacking and kidnapping by FBI agents in South Dakota were sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Prosecutors said the three attackers left Greeley, Colorado, on May 5, 2022, on a “drug trafficking trip” to South Dakota in a Ford Expedition. Lopez-Gutierrez testified in January that when the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation ran out of gas, Morales told others he needed to “salvage” a new car.
A short time later, FBI agents speeding in a Dodge Durango spotted the Expeditions and, believing them to be tribal agents, stopped the vehicle. Prosecutors said the suspects pointed a gun at Durango and forced the victim to accompany them. The victim said Alvarez-Solto threatened her family and put a gun to the back of her head as she lay face down in the Badlands.
When the group stopped to buy gas and zip ties in the town of Hermosa, South Dakota, the victim decided to flee. He told the hearing that he crawled over Mr. Morales and “scratched” his way out of the car. Morales grabbed his jacket and the victim fell, but managed to get back up. He reportedly fled “running like a chicken with its head cut off.”
Morales and Alvarez-Salt were arrested a week later in Greeley. Lopez-Gutierrez was arrested in August 2022 in Loveland, Colorado.
Morales’ attorney Jonathan McCoy asked the judge for a sentence of 20 to 25 years in prison. He said Morales was granted asylum in 2017 because Guatemalan gangs were trying to kill him.
“Deportation is a death sentence in Guatemala,” McCoy said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Jehangiri said Morales wasted “our country’s goodwill” in his crimes.
“It’s completely disgraceful,” Jehangiri said. “The defection was to escape gang activity, and now you are an active participant in gang activity.”
López-Gutierrez’s attorneys also asked for a lenient sentence, citing in part the fact that she is a mother of three children and takes responsibility for her role.
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“I’m very disappointed,” Lopez-Gutierrez tearfully said during the hearing. “I apologize to him and his family for the pain I have caused.”
