RAPID CITY, SD (AP) — The last two members of a trio who carjacked and kidnapped an FBI employee in South Dakota in 2022 have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
Deyvin Morales, 29, was sentenced Friday to 47 years in prison, the Rapid City Journal reported. At the same hearing, Karla Lopez-Gutierrez, 29, was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison.
The third person involved in the crime, Juan Alvarez-Sorto, 25, was sentenced earlier this month to 37 years in prison.
Alvarez-Sorto and Morales had pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, carjacking and other crimes, but were found guilty in January. Alvarez-Sorto was also convicted of entering the United States illegally after being deported to his home country of El Salvador. Lopez-Gutierrez pleaded guilty in August to conspiracy to kidnap and weapons charges.
At Friday’s hearing, the victim said the attackers “showed me no mercy” before he was able to escape.
“You already had everything mine,” he said. “Why did you have to kidnap me?”
Prosecutors said the three attackers 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. The victim said Alvarez-Sorto threatened his family and held a gun to the back of 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 decided to try to escape. He testified during the hearing that he crawled on top of Morales and “fought his way” out of the car. Morales grabbed his jacket and the victim fell, but managed to get up. He “ran like a chicken with its head cut off” to escape, he said.
Morales and Alvarez-Sorto were arrested in Greeley a week later. 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. He said Morales was granted asylum in 2017 because a gang in Guatemala wanted to kill him.
“The deportation sentences him to death in Guatemala,” McCoy said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Jehangiri said Morales squandered “the good will of our country” by committing the crime.
“It’s absolutely shameful,” Jehangiri said. “The asylum was meant to escape gang activity, and now you are active in gang activity.”
Lopez-Gutierrez’s lawyer also asked for a more lenient sentence, citing in part that she is a mother of three and has taken responsibility for her role.
“I’m so sorry,” Lopez-Gutierrez said through tears during the hearing. “I apologize to him and his family for the pain I have caused.”
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