Three Chicago men have received significant prison sentences after pleading guilty to a federal extortion charge stemming from a botched kidnapping attempt, the U.S. Attorney's Office reported. The kidnapping, which took place in broad daylight, involved the wrong target – a mistaken identity that led to a man being violently detained for nearly 48 hours.
In 2015, Chicago locals Antonio Salgado, Octavio Alejandre Jr., and Armando Delgado orchestrated the abduction of an individual they believed to be involved in drug trafficking. However, their plan faltered when they seized a relative of the intended victim instead. The abducted man was subsequently blindfolded and beaten while held at gunpoint in an auto body shop located in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood. Amidst this turmoil, kidnappers made ransom demands to another relative of the victim, requesting drugs or cash, a little situation that revealed their grave error.
Federal authorities were already monitoring several of the kidnappers' phones due to an unrelated investigation, which allowed law enforcement to intercept revealing conversations. In one such discussion, "There is a little situation. It’s the wrong guy because it’s his brother . . . that we’re trying to get.," Delgado confided to Salgado, to which the latter responded, "Let the guy go, but beat the [expletive] out of him." Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kartik K. Raman and Erika L. Csicsila emphasized the severity of the crime in court documents, asserting, "There is perhaps nothing more serious than grabbing a person off the street at gunpoint, using force and intimidation and beatings to detain them."
The legal consequences for the trio concluded recently with U.S. District Judge Andrea R. Wood administering prison sentences to all involved: Salgado, 42, received ten and a half years; Alejandre Jr., 41, was also sentenced to ten and a half years; and Delgado, 44, garnered fourteen years and seven months in federal prison. Salgado's term came after a period of evading the law for about eight months – a flight that led to an additional contempt of court charge.
The announcement of the sentences came jointly from Morris Pasqual, Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and law enforcement officials including Douglas S. DePodesta of the FBI's Chicago Field Office and Sheila G. Lyons from the U.S. DEA's Chicago Division. The Berwyn, Ill. Police Department and the Chicago Police Department also provided critical support in bringing the defendants to justice.
