FAST CITY, SD — One of three people convicted of carjacking and kidnapping an FBI employee in South Dakota has been sentenced to 37 years in prison.
Juan Alvarez-Sorto, 25, was sentenced Friday in federal court, the Rapid City Journal reported. Alvarez-Sorto and Deyvin Morales, 29, were convicted in January. Alvarez-Sorto was also convicted of entering the United States illegally after being deported to his home country of El Salvador.
A third suspect, Karla Lopez-Gutierrez, 29, pleaded guilty in August. Both Morales and Lopez-Gutierrez are scheduled to be sentenced on April 26.
Prosecutors said the trio left Greeley, Colorado, on May 5, 2022, and were on a “drug trafficking trip” to South Dakota aboard a Ford Expedition. Nearly out of gas on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Morales told others they needed to “get back” a new vehicle, Lopez-Gutierrez testified in January.
Shortly thereafter, the FBI employee speeding in his Dodge Durango saw the Expedition and stopped, believing it to be a tribal officer. Prosecutors said the suspects took the Durango at gunpoint and forced the victim to follow them.
“I am still haunted by the trauma you inflicted on me,” the victim told Alvarez-Sorto during the sentencing hearing. He said Alvarez-Sorto threatened his family and put a gun to his head while he was face down in the Badlands.
When the group stopped to buy gas and fasteners in the town of Hermosa, South Dakota, the victim managed to escape.
Morales and Alvarez-Sorto were arrested in Greeley a week later. Lopez-Gutierrez was arrested in August 2022 in Loveland, Colorado.
Alvarez-Sorto’s attorney, Alecia Fuller, said her client was remorseful and noted that relatives abused Alvarez-Sorto when he was a child.
ABC News
