MEXICO CITY — Yecenia Lazcano Soriano left behind a 4-year-old daughter in her home town of Tehuacan, Mexico, when she set out almost in secret to reach the United States.
The last message she sent to relatives was a heart emoji. Days later, on the California coast, two small boats carrying her and other migrants capsized in rough surf off a beach in San Diego.
The 22-year-old’s body was one of eight recovered shortly after the accident last Sunday at Black’s Beach, one of the deadliest maritime smuggling events near U.S. shores.
A single mother, Lazcano Soriano’s story was almost a microcosm of the desperation that drives many migrants to the United States. Nearly 129,000 migrants were stopped trying to cross the U.S. border in February.
At age 15, Lazcano Soriano went to live with the father of her child, but he was abducted and disappeared, like over 112,000 other Mexicans who have vanished since drug cartel violence picked up in 2006.
Lazcano Soriano dreamed of opening her own store in Tehuacan, a poor agricultural town lying between the cities of Puebla and Oaxaca in south-central Mexico. Most there make a tenuous living growing flowers or corn. The single mother sold fruit and vegetables at a local market.
But with jobs scarce, she decided to follow her aunt, Wendy Valencia, who left Tehuacan to emigrate to Dallas six years ago.
Lazcano Soriano left Tehuacan weeks ago, telling only two of her relatives. The last message she sent was a heart emoji to Valencia. After that, there was silence, until the chilling news came: Authorities had identified her by ID documents found on her body.
“She wasn’t afraid of work,” Valencia said in a telephone interview. “She was a warrior, a woman who was accustomed to struggle.”
She left her daughter in the care of her 72-year-old grandmother and two other aunts, but had hoped to be reunited with the girl.
“Her goal was to give her daughter a better future, an adequate home,” Valencia said. Life was never that kind to Lazcano Soriano; her companion’s disappearance was never solved.
A total of 23 people were thought to aboard the two boats that capsized off San Diego. Many of the other passengers are believed to have made it to land and escaped.
Mexican authorities said preliminary identification based on records found with people’s bodies indicate seven of the eight dead were Mexicans.
Just 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Tehuacan, in the town of Tlacotepec de Benito Juarez, the tragedy touched the family of Alma Figueroa Gorgoria.
Figueroa Gorgoria would have turned 18 next week. She had set out for the United States with her aunt, Ana Jacqueline Figueroa, 23. Both of their bodies were identified in San Diego.
Just seven miles (12 kilometers) in the other direction, the nearby farming community of Santiago Miahuatlan was the hometown of Guillermo Suárez González, who also risked traveling in the boats to reach the United States. A worker at a local export assembly plant, the 23-year-old dreamed of a better life; he left behind four children. Eloy Hernández Baltazar, 58, also lived in Santiago Miahuatlan, and was also among the dead.
The Puebla state migrant aid office said the paperwork has been submitted to return Suárez González to his home town for burial.
THE HAGUE (AP) — The International Criminal Court said Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine.
The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar allegations.
The court’s president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement that while the ICC’s judges have issued the warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to enforce warrants.
“The ICC is doing its part of work as a court of law. The judges issued arrest warrants. The execution depends on international cooperation.”
A possible trial of any Russians at the ICC remains a long way off, as Moscow does recognize the court’s jurisdiction — a position reaffirmed earlier this week by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov — and does not extradite its nationals.
Ukraine also is not a member of the court, but it has granted the ICC jurisdiction over its territory and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has visited four times since opening an investigation a year ago.
The ICC said that its pretrial chamber found there were “reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.”
The court statement said that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the child abductions “for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others [and] for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.”
On Thursday, a U.N.-backed inquiry cited Russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine, including systematic torture and killing in occupied regions, among potential issues that amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.
The sweeping investigation also found crimes committed against Ukrainians on Russian territory, including deported Ukrainian children who were prevented from reuniting with their families, a “filtration” system aimed at singling out Ukrainians for detention, and torture and inhumane detention conditions.
But on Friday, the ICC put the face of Putin on the child abduction allegations.
LAKE CITY, S.C. — Prepping for his first trip out of the country, 28-year-old Zindell Brown of Lake City, South Carolina, had something more than nerves. Perhaps it was a premonition about the trip he and several friends were taking to Mexico.
“He said, ‘Something, it just doesn’t feel right,’” his older sister Zalandria Brown told The Associated Press over the phone. “(That was) the last thing we talked about.”
Hopping into protection mode for the man so close to her that she called him her “hip bone,” Brown urged her brother to not take the trip planned earlier this month. As someone known to help others, however, Brown wasn’t surprised her sibling shook off the feeling and offered to drive with his group of childhood friends on a road trip to Mexico, where one was scheduled for cosmetic surgery and another planned to celebrate his 34th birthday.
The inside of a rented white van would be the last place Brown would see her baby brother alive. Sometime during the nearly 22-hour trip from South Carolina to Brownsville, Texas, Brown watched a video posted online of Zindell smiling into the camera.
But in Mexico, the group was attacked. Around midday, a vehicle crashed into the group’s van. Several men with tactical vests and assault rifles arrived in another vehicle and surrounded them, according to Mexican police reports.
Two members of the group — Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard — were shot and killed. Eric Williams was shot in the leg, and he and fellow survivor Latavia McGee were loaded into a pickup truck, according to video posted on social media. The violence was blamed on the Gulf cartel, a drug gang tied to killings and kidnappings in Matamoros, a city of a half-million people that has long been a stronghold of the powerful cartel. The group purpotedly apologized for the killings in a letter obtained by the Associated Press from a Mexican law enforcement official.
Even before she viewed footage of the ambush that quickly circulated online, Zalandria Brown said she began to have a sickening feeling that her brother was gone.
“That was the other part of my soul,” she said.
She called her brother the male version of herself. Gone is her game hunting partner and the “cool uncle” her two (teenage) sons looked up to.
“He always put a smile on everybody’s face. He was always joking and playing and laughing around,” she said.
In the days leading up to the trip, Zindell spent time at home, playing video games – a break from the other work his hands were known for: carpentry. Zindell picked up woodworking skills from his father, who wanted to train him in the family craft.
“He had so many skills. He could do carpentry work,” she said, adding: “He did roofing work. He could do everything you could think of when it came to building a house. My father trained him to do all of that.”
Though she lives in Florence, South Carolina, Brown said she, her brother, Woodard and McGee all grew up in modest Lake City. By midweek, the town of fewer than 6,000 people seemed consumed by the grim loss.
At the local library on Main Street, patrons chatted amongst themselves about condolences, while a few blocks away near the police station a stranger pressed a bouquet of purple flowers into the arms of Shaeed’s father.
This month would have marked Shaeed Woodard’s 34th birthday, according to his father, James Woodard. Shaeed’s cousin Latavia McGee had surprised him with the road trip as a birthday excursion, James Woodard said. Shaeed and Zindell were close; Brown said she also considered him a brother.
By the night of March 5, Brown would get a phone call confirming her worst fears. A family friend phoned to say the doctor’s office they were headed to in Mexico called to say McGee was late and thought to be kidnapped. McGee said every day since then for her surviving two siblings and parents has seemed like a “nightmare.” Neither family said they accept the cartel’s apology for the violent abductions. “It’s just crazy to see your own child taken from you in such a way, in a violent lay like that,” Woodard said. “He didn’t deserve it because he was a sweetheart. He had a big heart.”
A 42-year-old Houston man has been charged with kidnapping, accused of holding a woman captive in a locked trailer for several years, according to court records. The woman was rescued by deputies on Wednesday.
Abraham Bravo Segura did “intentionally and knowingly abduct” the victim, and held her in “a place where the Complainant was not likely to be found,” court documents said.
During a probable cause hearing on Thursday, a Harris County prosecutor alleged the woman was “locked” in the boarded-up trailer for “approximately four years,” according to courtroom video obtained by KTRK-TV.
While Segura was at work, the victim was able to call the police for help from inside the trailer in North Houston, according to KTRK.
All the trailer’s exits were blocked with burglary bars on the windows, and Harris County Sheriff’s deputies found three handguns inside, KTRK reported.
On Wednesday night, when authorities arrived at the trailers, bolt cutters didn’t break through the boarded-up trailer, and the fire department had to use power tools to cut through the bars, the station reported.
At the hearing, Segura disagreed with the allegations against him and asked the hearing officer more than once “if he could defend himself,” reported KTRK. He said the “story is one-sided.”
Segura is in Harris County jail on a $150,000 bond, according to jail records. The bond conditions state he cannot have contact with the victim or family, and he would have to wear a GPS monitor upon his release, court records said.
His next court appearance is March 13.
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Mexican and U.S. authorities are continuing their investigation into the deaths of two U.S. citizens who were kidnapped in Mexico last week while on a trip for cosmetic surgery. Two survivors are recovering in a Texas hospital. Omar Villafranca has the details.
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A woman who traveled to the Mexican border with the four Americans who were kidnapped in the country said that she warned police when the group didn’t return on schedule.
Cheryl Orange told the Associated Press via text message that she was with Eric Williams, Latavia McGee, Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard. McGee was scheduled to have cosmetic surgery in the Mexican city of Matamoros on Friday, and the other three were meant to cross back into the United States and reconvene with Orange in the Texas city of Brownsville within 15 minutes of dropping her off.
Instead, the four friends were attacked. The FBI told CBS News that they were fired upon by drug cartel factions, and the white van they were driving crashed. A Mexican woman was killed in the initial attack, and the four Americans were kidnapped.
On Tuesday, Mexican and American officials said that the four had been rescued. Brown and Woodard were dead, officials said, and Williams was injured. McGee and Williams were repatriated to the United States.
Officials were still “in the process of working to repatriate the remains” of the two victims who were killed, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.
The attack and kidnappings remain under investigation.
“(McGee) simply went for a cosmetic surgery, and that’s it,” Orange told the AP. “That’s all, and this happened to them.”
Orange said that she had stayed in the group’s Brownsville hotel room, awaiting their return, because she had forgotten her identification and couldn’t cross the border. According to the AP, Orange told authorities that she had the group’s luggage. She also tried to contact her four friends several times, but there was no answer.
It’s not clear exactly when Orange alerted police that her friends were missing.
It’s not yet known when the FBI was informed of the missing group. Officials have not offered many details on how the group was recovered, though the attorney general in Tamaulipas, the state where Matamoros is located, said that it was through joint search operations with American and Mexican entities.
Tamaulipas is one of several Mexican territories that is under a “Do Not Travel” advisory from the U.S. State Department. The department has cited concerns such as crime and kidnapping.
Federal prosecutors say two men have been convicted of helping Somali pirates who kidnapped a U.S. journalist for ransom and held him for 2 1/2 years
NEW YORK — Two men have been convicted of helping Somali pirates who kidnapped a U.S. journalist for ransom and held him for 2 1/2 years, prosecutors said.
Mohamed Tahlil Mohamed and Abdi Yusuf Hassan were convicted by a federal court jury in New York on Feb. 24 of hostage-taking, conspiracy, providing material support for acts of terrorism and other crimes that carry potential life sentences.
Michael Scott Moore, a German-American journalist, was abducted in January 2012 in Galkayo, Somalia, 400 miles (643.7 kilometers) northeast of the capital of Mogadishu. He was working as a freelancer for the German publication Spiegel Online and researching a book about piracy.
The kidnappers demanded $20 million in ransom and at one point released a video showing Moore surrounded by masked kidnappers who pointed a machine gun and rocket-propelled grenade at him.
Moore was freed in September 2014. Moore has said his family raised $1.6 million for his release.
“Tahlil, a Somali Army officer, left his post to take command of the pirates holding Moore captive and obtained the machine guns and grenade launchers used to threaten and hold Moore,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement. “Hassan, the Minister of Interior and Security for the province in Somalia where Moore was held hostage, abused his government position and led the pirates’ efforts to extort a massive ransom from Moore’s mother.”
Hassan, who was born in Mogadishu, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He was arrested in Minneapolis in 2019 and charged with federal crimes.
Details of Tahlil’s arrest haven’t been disclosed but he was jailed in New York City in 2018.
In a 2018 book Moore wrote about his captivity, he said that Tahlil got in touch with him from Somalia by Facebook two months after the journalist’s release and included a photograph. Moore recognized him as the “”boss” of his guards.
The men began a correspondence.
“I hope u are fine,” Tahlil said, according to the book. “The pirates who held u hostage killed each other over group vendetta and money issues.”
According to the criminal complaint reported by the New York Times, that was consistent with reports that some pirates were killed in a dispute over division of Moore’s ransom.
Hassan and Tahlil were scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 6.
Attorneys for the two men were emailed for comment by The Associated Press after hours on Monday but the messages weren’t immediately returned.
Four Americans were kidnapped in the Mexican border town of Matamoros on Sunday. Mexico’s president said they were trying to buy medicine, which is less expensive across the border, and may have been targeted by mistake. Janet Shamlian has the latest.
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A mother is forced to rob a bank to save her daughter’s life, then her abductor falsely claims the mother was in on the crime. “48 Hours” contributor Tracy Smith reports.
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The only monsters that had ever scared Michelle Renee’s 7-year-old daughter Breea were make-believe. But on Nov. 20, 2000, just a day before three masked men broke in …
Michelle Renee: She calls me. ‘Mom, there’s somebody outside the window’ … I looked out there. I didn’t see anything. I didn’t see anybody. … So, I just brushed it off.
Michelle and Breea Renee
Michelle Renee
Michelle had chalked it up to her child’s imagination. But this time was different.
Michelle Renee: She saw them looking through the window. They were there the night before.
The same men now held Michelle and Breea at gunpoint in the living room. The gunmen said they’d been following the 35-year-old bank manager for months.
Michelle Renee: It was very much that mind control thing that they were doing, that “we know everything about you.”
Michelle would recount the events inside the house for investigators:
FBI VIDEO OF MICHELLE RENEE AT CRIME SCENE: “We’re going to be here all night with you to make sure you know exactly what you’re going to do or you will die.”
Throughout the night, the ringleader gave specific instructions about how he wanted Michelle to rob her own bank the next morning:
FBI VIDEO OF MICHELLE RENEE AT CRIME SCENE: “We’re going to go over this again. This is what you’re going to do … When Brinks gets there, you’re going to get Brinks’ money.”
As she huddled with Breea on the couch, now duct taped, Michelle could hear him talking to a woman on a two-way radio.
Michelle Renee: Money One to Money Two were their –
Tracy Smith: That’s what they called each other.
Michelle Renee: Yeah, they called each other Money One to Money Two.
Money One was the ringleader. Around 11, the voice on the walkie-talkie got his attention: “Car coming up the driveway. The roommate’s there.”
It was their roommate Kimbra.
Michelle Renee doing a videotaped walkthrough for investigators of what happened when she was held hostage at her former house.
North County Superior Court
FBI VIDEO OF MICHELLE RENEE AT CRIME SCENE: And they put the gun right here in her face, right up her nose, and said, “don’t make us f***ing use this.” … I pushed the guy’s hand out of her face and said, “don’t do this, don’t hurt her.” And he just pointed it right at me and said, “don’t ever f***ing touch me again …”
Michelle realized this might be the last night she ever spent with her daughter.
MICHELLE RENEE VIDEO WALKTHROUGH: It was almost morning. … I just rubbed her hair so she could try to get some sleep.
Michelle Renee: Wondering if that was gonna be the last time I was gonna get to touch her hair and see her sleep … was pretty tough.
In the morning the nightmare would continue.
Michelle Renee: It was like 6 a.m. … he said “Get up. It’s time to get ready for work.”
FBI VIDEO OF MICHELLE RENEE AT CRIME SCENE: I got dressed and started doing my hair when he came in and stopped me and said, “we need to put the dynamite on you now.”
In a reenactment for investigators, Michelle and Breea Renee are seen wearing the fake dynamite that the kidnappers strapped to their backs.
North County Superior Court
Michelle, her roommate Kimbra, and Breea would all be strapped with dynamite. Then Money One showed Michelle what looked like a doorbell.
Michelle Renee: “This is a detonation device. … you will disintegrate. Your daughter will go first.”
FBI VIDEO OF MICHELLE RENEE AT CRIME SCENE:: “One false move, I push this button.” …
And they sat me right here and said, “now we’re going to take your daughter.”
The gunmen put Breea in her bedroom closet.
FBI VIDEO OF MICHELLE RENEE AT CRIME SCENE: I was just telling her I’d be right back, that everything is going to be fine.
Michelle Renee: “Be brave, Mommy” … that was the last thing she said … before I walked out to go to the bank.
Tracy Smith: Did you feel brave?
Michelle Renee: No.
As two of the gunmen stayed in the house, Money One handed Michelle a briefcase stuffed with a duffle bag before he crouched in the back of her Jeep. With dynamite on her back and a gun to her side, she drove to work.
Tracy Smith (outside of the bank): So, you pull up into your spot … What does he tell you before you get out of the car?
Michelle Renee: “Don’t … don’t f*** this up.”
Tracy Smith: The Brinks truck came at — 8:50?
Michelle Renee: I believe right around 8:50 was the drop, right over here (poins to the left side of the building from the entrance).
That’s when Michelle grabbed her briefcase and headed to the vault.
Michelle Renee: I brought my teller in the vault with me, said … “I’m getting ready to clear out this vault, or my daughter and I are gonna die. This is what’s happened all night.”
Tracy Smith: And you whispered to her “I have dynamite on my back”?
Michelle Renee: Yes. …Yeah, I whisp — I pulled my shirt up.
Tracy Smith: And then you just opened up the duffel bag and started shoveling in money?
Michelle Renee: I did. … My heart was racing. My –”am I fast enough?”
Michelle’s colleagues would alert the authorities, but not before she walked out with $360,000.
Michelle Renee: … Just get to the Jeep. Hurl it in the Jeep —
Tracy Smith: And go.
Michelle Renee: — and just do what’s next.
Money One directed Michelle to get out a few blocks later.
Michelle Renee: And that I would find my Jeep down the street.
She found her car and raced home.
Michelle Renee: I don’t know if Breea’s gonna be there. I don’t know if she’s gonna be alive when I get there … And I went to open the door, and I was just screaming … “Hello? Hello?” … It was eerily silent.
Breea Renee: And I just heard “Breea,” and I remember screaming, “We’re back here, we’re back here.”
Breea was still in the closet right where Michelle had left her.
Tracy Smith: What was that like to hear and see her?
Michelle Renee: Oh my gosh … She was alive. … “I did it. We did it. … we didn’t die.”
Breea Renee: Probably the happiest moment of my life. … But then I could still see the panic on her face.
Michelle Renee: The dynamite’s still on me.
Before leaving, the gunmen had ripped the dynamite off of Kimbra and Breea. So, they cut it off of Michelle’s back before running to the nearest neighbor.
Rick Brown lived up a steep hill.
Rick Brown | Neighbor: I opened the gate, went down the hill real fast, helped them up to the house.I called 911 right away.
911 DISPATCHER: Sheriff’s Department, can I help you?
RICK BROWN: Yes, some neighbors of ours were held hostage … I need somebody out here right away.
Soon, the place was crawling with investigators from the FBI, San Diego Sheriff’s Department, and the bomb squad.
Tom Manning: This is the dynamite that was taken off of Michelle.
San Diego County Prosecutor Tom Manning would lead the task force investigating the case. They quickly figured out the dynamite was fake.
Tom Manning: They realize that it actually is two painted dowels or broomstick handles … But as you can see from a distance and the lighting, plus it’s on your back with the stress of the situation, you’re not gonna take a chance that it isn’t real.
But during the very real 14 hours they were held hostage, Michelle had held onto any detail that might help identify the attackers.
Michelle Renee: Remembering details is just sort of this part of my DNA about people. That was kinda my superpower.
Details like Money One’s eyes.
A sketch of Money One by Michelle Renee. During the 14-hour hostage situation, Renee had recognized the ringleader’s eyes because he had posed as a customer at the bank earlier that day.
CBS News/Michelle Renee
FBI VIDEO OF MICHELLE RENEE AT CRIME SCENE: When I turned the light on to go to the bathroom … and I saw his eyes in there… I said “those eyes were at my desk; those eyes were at my desk today. Oh my God.”
Michelle says it was a man with whom she’d had an odd encounter at the bank hours before being taken hostage.
Michelle Renee: And he sat at my desk for a really long time asking sorta the same questions over and over. … and then a woman walked in and said, “Chris, we need to get going.” And they got up and left.
The man had handed Michelle his business card.
Tracy Smith: And the name on the business card was?
Michelle Renee: Christopher Butler.
THE EVIDENCE LEFT BEHIND
After hours of police questioning, Michelle and Breea were sent to a hotel. Michelle called her brother Dave.
Dave Estey: It didn’t sound like her … it was — someone, you know, heavily traumatized.
Dave, who lived three hours away, rushed to his sister’s aid.
Dave Estey: What I saw when I opened that door … it scared the daylights out of me. … “Are you OK?” And she would shake.
Tracy Smith: How about Breea?
Dave Estey: Same thing.
In the days ahead, Michelle struggled to hold it together for her daughter – “She was the strongest person for me,” says Breea — while investigators wanted answers.
They grilled her about that odd encounter with Christopher Butler.
Tracy Smith: Why was he in the bank? What was he saying he was there for?
Michelle Renee: He came in to say that he was a potential client. And that he wanted to talk about investments.
Before Butler handed Michelle his business card, a woman he introduced as Lisa came in and whisked him away.
Michelle Renee: “Hey, Chris, we need to go.”
It was the same voice Michelle says she heard later that night on the walkie-talkie.
Michelle Renee: I kept saying it over and over.
Tracy Smith: “Check my desk. Get that card.”
Michelle Renee: “Check my desk. Get that card. …I know that it’s them.”
Tom Manning: Through that card, they started the investigation.
The ringleader had been at the bank hours before the break-in posing as a customer. He had talked to Michelle Renee, the bank manager, about opening a new account and had even left behind a business card before a female companion had whisked him away.
North County Superior Court
The FBI soon discovered Butler was a convicted felon with a history of robbing banks.
Tom Manning: They figured out where he was staying … then the team that I work with set up surveillance.
Butler and his fiancée, Lisa Ramirez, lived in a house just a few miles from the bank.
Tom Manning: Some of the people in the house were tellin’ the police who was there, when they planned it
Within days, detectives identified the two other men. Christopher Huggins –
Tom Manning: He was a big guy, maybe — maybe 6’4″ he’s … gang ties.
And the man who’d held a gun to little Breea — a gang member called “Bones” — real name Robert Ortiz.
Tom Manning: Ortiz was the connection … who got the guns.
On Dec. 1, they decided to arrest Butler and Ramirez during a traffic stop.
When Christopher Butler and Lisa Ramirez were arrested 10 days later at a traffic stop, investigators found physical evidence tying them to the crime, including a BB gun that matched one of the guns Renee had described.
North County Superior Court
Tom Manning (in evidence room): In the glove compartment was a weapon … it’s actually a BB gun … if you look at that in a stressful situation, that looks as real as it can get.
Tracy Smith: What’d they find when they popped the trunk?
Tom Manning: A plethora of evidence.
Tracy Smith: All this.
Tom Manning: All this. … They found the black bag that Michelle described the money being carried in, several pairs of black gloves … and a homemade ski mask.
Tracy Smith: Oh, yeah. Look at the eyeholes there that they clearly cut themselves.
Tom Manning: Michelle’s credit cards were all found in the trunk of the vehicle … and then of course the money straps from the bank.
Also in the trunk, that doorbell “detonator”. And there was even more at the house.
Tom Manning: They found all the ingredients to make the fake bomb. … There were broom handles, which were cut up into small dowels which actually were used in making the fake dynamite. … They also recovered the actual spray cans … Ramirez’s fingerprint was on one of those cans.
Tom Manning: It was crazy. I’ve never seen that much physical evidence left at a crime scene.
Tracy Smith: They thought they’d gotten away with it.
Tom Manning: Yeah.
One thing investigators didn’t find on Butler and Ramirez – any of the bank’s $360,000. But after arresting Huggins that same day, they did recover $93,000 of the cash that he’d stashed away. Huggins confessed and said he’d already spent several grand on a trip to Vegas. The fourth suspect, Robert Ortiz, was on the lam.
When authorities arrested him three months later in Wisconsin, Ortiz still had $32,000 of the bank’s money and gave a full confession.
Tracy Smith: Did Huggins and Ortiz’s confessions corroborate each other?
Tom Manning: Yes, very much so.
Tracy Smith: So, did Huggins and Ortiz’s confessions corroborate what Michelle had told investigators?
Tom Manning: Yes, almost identical.
In his interview with investigators, Christopher Butler denied everything to police and tried to protect Lisa Ramirez.
North County Superior Court
Butler denied everything, even when confronted with direct evidence: his thumbprint on the fake dynamite sticks.
DETECTIVE: We’ve got fingerprints that are yours that link you to the bank robbery.
CHRISTOPHER BUTLER: I doubt that because I wasn’t involved in the bank robbery.
He tried to protect Ramirez.
CHRISTOPHER BUTLER: Lisa wouldn’t have been involved with that.
But Ramirez was about to start talking. She admitted she was the female voice on the walkie-talkie.
LISA RAMIREZ: That was me.
DETECTIVE: That was you?
LISA RAMIREZ: Mm-hmm.
In her interview with investigators, Lisa Ramirez admitted she was involved in the plot, and that she was the female voice on the walkie-talkie. She even took credit for the idea to use fake dynamite and kidnap the bank manager. But during that interview, Ramirez also falsely claimed that Renee had been in on it.
North County Superior Court
She even took credit for the idea to use fake dynamite and kidnap the bank manager.
LISA RAMIREZ: I honestly know whose idea it was, about eight months ago.
DETECTIVE: Who?
LISA RAMIREZ: Jokingly, mine.
Ramirez said they’d split the money three ways, but that her and Butler’s share – more than $100,000 – had been stolen. And to everyone’s surprise, she said Michelle was in on the plot.
LISA RAMIREZ: Supposedly from what they had told me this Michelle lady was helping them.
Tom Manning: We walked out of that thinking, “OK, Lisa’s the mastermind behind all this. And, is it possible Michelle’s involved?”
Manning says, ultimately, he knew Michelle was innocent.
Tom Manning: The first time I interviewed her, she had Breea with her. And … I saw that bond and relationship. And when she left, I went, “She’s not involved in this.”
But that wouldn’t be enough in court. San Diego County Sheriff’s detectives Rudy Zamora, Dale Martin and Randi Demers would have to rule Michelle out as a suspect.
Rudy Zamora: Every time we pushed a button, she would react in a way … a true victim should.
They recreated the dynamite packs and strapped them on Kimbra, Michelle and Breea.
Dale Martin: She was very upset.
And Michelle was emotional when asked to revisit the horrific details of the kidnapping.
FBI VIDEO OF MICHELLE RENEE AT CRIME SCENE: And then they — I had to put her in there and they just shut the — shut the closet.
Dale Martin: She was shaken up. I thought she was gonna have a nervous breakdown.
Tracy Smith: When Michelle did those reenactments, were her story, Kimbra’s story, and Breea’s story consistent?
Tom Manning: Yes. Completely consistent.
In fact, investigators couldn’t find any evidence Michelle was involved. Still, they worried as they took a deep dive into Michelle’s life.
Rudy Zamora: She was not our normal victim.
Tracy Smith: What did they find out about Michelle’s past?
Tom Manning: She didn’t hide anything.
Including the fact that for years she had worked as a stripper.
Michelle Renee: I’m not embarrassed or ashamed by any of that.
Michelle says it was one of the choices she had to make for survival at a young age.
Michelle Renee: I ran away at 15. … I worked really, really hard to get to where I was.
In 2000, Michelle Renee was a single mom working as a bank branch manager. “I was running a bank and I had a career. I was loving where I was living. I really loved my job,” she told “48 Hours” contributor Tracy Smith.
Michelle Renee
With no high school diploma, she had climbed the corporate ladder all the way to regional vice president before taking the bank manager job to be home more with Breea.
Tracy Smith: And while you were working at the bank, you were still dancing, still stripping for a while?
Michelle Renee: I was for a while …The money was really great.
But more worrisome were things that went directly to Michelle’s credibility.
Tom Manning: She falsified resumés … claimed she had various experience, variouseducation which she didn’t have.
Tracy Smith: Bounced a check, filed for bankruptcy.
Tom Manning: Right.
Tracy Smith: That doesn’t look good.
Tom Manning: It doesn’t look good. …And if you’re a defense attorney, you’re lickin’ your chops.
ATTACKED AT TRIAL
By spring of 2001, the suspects were in custody awaiting trial for kidnapping and bank robbery charges, but Michelle and Breea were still reeling from that night of terror.
Michelle Renee: I could still hear them. I could still hear the sounds … I couldn’t get it to turn off.
Breea Renee: I just wanted to hide. I thought they were gonna find us. They were gonna kill us still.
In June, Michelle decided to move Breea to Alaska to live with her grandmother.
Michelle Renee: I was gonna fly her up there and get her to safety … I was gonna figure out what to do from there.
After a few days, Michelle says she had an epiphany.
Michelle Renee: To go back to San Diego and get rid of everything I could possibly get rid of and drive back to Alaska.
With a dog,some cash, and a camcorder, in Julyshe embarked on a 9-day drive to the Last Frontier.
Tracy Smith: You had a deadline.
Michelle Renee: I had a deadline. Breea’s birthday was in nine days. And I’d promised her I’d be back before her birthday party.
Michelle and Breea Renee’s reunion in Alaska was captured by Michelle’s car dashboard camera.
Michelle Renee
That’s when Michelle and Breea say they began to heal.
Tracy Smith: Did you feel safe in Alaska?
Breea Renee: Safer … I could be a kid again.
By the time they returned to San Diego a year later for the trial, Michelle says she was ready.
Michelle Renee: There was so much evidence. There was no way I thought that this trial was gonna be anything but … slam dunk.
Butler and Ramirez would be tried first.
Tracy Smith: When her case came across your desk what did you think at first?
Herb Weston: She’s guilty.
Tracy Smith: You thought she’s guilty?
Herb Weston: Well, yeah.
Herb Weston, who represented Lisa Ramirez, had a problem. His client had confessed on camera.
DETECTIVE: There was a female voice that came out on one of those walkie-talkies.
LISA RAMIREZ: That was me.
Herb Weston: If they play that tape, saying that she wasn’t involved woulda been difficult.
Weston proposed a plea deal, hoping to save Ramirez from a potential life sentence. But the prosecution turned him down.
Tom Manning: We thought we would definitely get the key statements in that she was involved.
But, since Ramirez had also implicated Butler, the judge ruled her entire statement inadmissible.
Herb Weston: We now can at least argue to the jury that she wasn’t involved.
Without her confession, the case against Ramirez relied almost entirely on Michelle — a fact Manning was keenly aware of during his opening statement to the jury on June 3, 2002.
Tracy Smith: You told the jury that this case was about credibility.
Tom Manning: Right…Michelle’s background was gonna be an issue … I knew there were issues … but I believed her.
Tracy Smith: And you thought … the jury would believe her.
Tom Manning: Right.
But not if the defense had its way.
Tracy Smith: What was your strategy going into trial?
Herb Weston: My strategy was to beat the hell out of the victim and show all these inconsistencies that the victim is saying.
Tom Manning: It got very confrontational.
Michelle Renee: I was really, really pissed off.
That played right into Weston’s hand.
Herb Weston: Angry witnesses don’t come across ascredible.
Michelle Renee: I was treated like I was the criminal.
During his cross-examination, Weston implied Michelle was lying about recognizing Lisa Ramirez’ voice on the walkie-talkie.
Herb Weston: Well, wait a minute, ma’am. I’ve looked at all this stuff. … isn’t this the first time you’ve said that?
In fact, he pointed out it wasn’t in any of the FBI reports. But Michelle insists she told them.
Michelle Renee: I did … I 100% did.
And Manning says she identified Ramirez’s voice to him before taking the stand.
Tracy Smith: Does it bother you that Lisa actually admitted that that was her voice on the walkie-talkie? … the fact is it was Lisa.
Herb Weston: But that’s not the issue. … for me it made a great opening to attack her credibility.
Weston then grilled Michelle about bait money — the traceable bills banks keep in their vaults to trap bank robbers.
Tracy Smith: You didn’t take the bait money.
Michelle Renee: Did not take the bait money.
Tracy Smith: Why not?
Michelle Renee: They said … “no funny money.”
Tracy Smith: You say that’s suspicious, that she must have been in on it.
Herb Weston: Correct.
“They were trying to paint me as somebody that was irresponsible,” Michelle Renee said of the three grueling days of direct testimony and cross-examination. “A selfish, terrible mother … that … would do anything for money.”
ZUMA
Maybe worst of all for Michelle, Weston questioned her maternal instincts.
Herb Weston: Would a mother run … to a place where her daughter was … if she believes that “I have a bomb on my back?”
Tracy Smith: She wasn’t sure whether her daughter was dead or alive. Don’t you think it’s possible she wasn’t thinking straight?
Herb Weston: Sure … But also what could be true is she knew there wasn’t a bomb, and so she didn’t have to worry about it.
Tracy Smith: Did you feel like you were on trial?
Michelle Renee: 100% felt like I was on trial.
Dave Estey: I would be sitting in the front row. And all I could think about was … it’s gonna take me … maybe six seconds to get from this point to the offender. … that is how irate I was.
Tracy Smith: Day after day, listening to this.
Dave Estey: Listening to this.
Tracy Smith: Is it fair to beat up the victim.
Herb Weston: Oh absolutely, absolutely.
While Weston hammered on every decision Michelle made that day, the attorney representing Butler went after everything else.
Tracy Smith: What was the worst thing they asked you?
Michelle Renee: About my sex life. …They were trying to paint me as somebody that was irresponsible … A selfish, terrible mother … that … would do anything for money.
And they picked apart Michelle’s finances.
Tom Manning: She’s in … financial distress, and that could be the motive.
Tracy Smith: Isn’t it kinda odd that we’re talking about motive when we’re talking about a victim?
Tom Manning: It is. … The defense in the case was to make Michelle a culprit here.
After Michelle’s grueling three-day testimony, it was Christopher Butler’s turn. He protected Lisa Ramirez on the stand, claiming Michelle was the mastermind, and that they’d had an affair.
Tom Manning: I was shocked.
Michelle Renee: It’s almost laughable.
Tracy Smith: What was his story about how the two of you met?
Michelle Renee: From what I understand … we met in a grocery store and that I recruited him.
Christopher Butler and Lisa Ramirez aka “Money One” and “Money Two” in court during their June 2002 trial.
Zuma
Butler claimed that he’d gone to Michelle’s house that night with Huggins and Ortiz. He said that in the early morning hours while smoking pot, Michelle brought up the bank robbery idea again and decided they should do it that morning.
Tracy Smith: His evidence of this, his proof of this?
Tom Manning: Zero … If any of this were true, he woulda thrown Michelle down in a heartbeat in his (police) interview.
The jury deliberated for five days before finding Butler guilty of the bank robbery and Breea and Kimbra’s kidnapping. But they hung 9-3 on the charges of kidnapping Michelle.
Tom Manning: When we talked to the jurors, you know, we discovered … it was one juror who completely believed Butler and the other two jurors … were unsure.
And they found Lisa Ramirez not guilty on all counts.
Herb Weston: Oh, it was the best verdict I ever got in my life.
Michelle Renee: Mind-boggling. The fact it was her idea to do this to a mother and a child and laughing and proud of it.
Tracy Smith: How involved do you think she was in this?
Tom Manning: Very involved … the investigators kept saying … she was the brains of the outfit.
Tracy Smith: So, the brains of the outfit walked.
Tom Manning: Right.
The second trial would go very differently, with Huggins and Ortiz easily convicted.
Tracy Smith: In so many of the stories that we tell, the ending is the conviction. But in your case, in a lot of ways, that’s just the beginning.
FACING NEW CHALLENGES
Even though the men who had terrorized them were now serving multiple life sentences, Michelle and Breea would never be the same.
Breea Renee: There’s aspects of that night that are gonna be with me for the rest of my life.
They were treated for post-traumatic stress disorder for over two years. Michelle says dealing with the break-in led to a breakthrough.
Michelle Renee: It was two choices. … call them monsters and stay angry … and blame everything in my life on them … Or … I can take this other road.
Michelle Renee: The best thing I could do for Breea is to be an example.
Michelle wrote a book, “Held Hostage,” which was made into a TV movie. And she and Breea went on speaking tours to discuss their experience with trauma.
Tracy Smith: A lot of people coming out of this would want to just forget about it, put it behind them. But you and your mom … talked openly about it.
Breea Renee: Yes. And I think it was the best decision for us.
Breea Renee said by talking about her experience with trauma, “I was showing people that it’s not always the end-all, be-all when something bad happens to you. You can come out of it stronger.”
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Breea Renee: I was showing people that it’s not always the end-all, be-all when something bad happens to you. You can come out of it stronger.
And by 2011, the girl who had hidden from everything was a high school senior and competitive cheerleader.
Michelle Renee: She really turned the corner and started enjoying her life again.
Michelle Renee: She loved it. It was her absolute passion.
Tracy Smith: You’re thriving. You’re living the dream. You said you dreamed of this. You were living the dream.
Breea Renee: Yes, I was.
Then suddenly …
Breea Renee: Senior year in December, I started feeling a little off. … I was dropping things.
Michelle Renee: Showed up at my work at 6 o’clock, dragging her leg … going “Mommy, something’s really wrong. Something’s wrong. I don’t know what’s happening.”
Breea Renee: I said … “Mom, I’m really scared.”
They had no idea Breea was in for the fight of her life.
Michelle Renee: We rushed her to the hospital. And they started pricking her leg and she couldn’t feel it. And her heart rate started going crazy.
Tracy Smith: Oh my gosh.
Breea Renee: By 8 p.m. that night, I was paralyzed on my left side, couldn’t talk, couldn’t swallow, blind in my left eye.
Michelle Renee: “We found abnormalities in the brain” is all they could tell me that night.
Tracy Smith: It almost sounds like there’s that same feeling of helplessness that you had the night that you were held hostage.
Michelle Renee: Completely.
The next morning, Breea was diagnosed with an acute onset of multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks its own tissues.
Michelle Renee: Based on the scans, she has … tumefactive MS, which is not only rare in and of itself, but people Breea’s age at 18 …rarely get MS.
Breea says she was told she might never walk or talk again.
Tracy Smith: Just like that.
Breea Renee: Just like that. … My life just ended again … I was 18 trying to go off to college, do cheer in college, and that was never gonna happen for me.
Tracy Smith: So much of your healing had been talking …. and now you couldn’t talk?
Breea Renee: Now I couldn’t talk … I couldn’t feed myself anymore.
Michelle Renee: She had to relearn all of that.
Diagnosed with a rare form of multiple sclerosis at age 18, Breea Renee was told she might never walk or talk again.
Michelle Renee
But it was as if they had been training for this for years.
Tracy Smith: Do you think in some way what happened to you when you were seven prepared you for battling MS?
Breea Renee: Yes … I think it made me strong enough to go through what I went through with MS.
Michelle Renee: It was here we go again, here we go again.
Breea would spend six weeks in the hospital.
Breea Renee: Two to three times a day of physical therapy, occupational … therapy, speech therapy.
Michelle Renee: After she could talk again … she turned to me and said, “Kidnapping was a piece of cake compared to this.”
And just as with the kidnapping, Breea wanted to inspire others.
Michelle Renee: She wrote her college essay from her hospital room, from her wheelchair and said, “I’m going to college. I am going to be the first person in my family to graduate college no matter what.”
BREEA RENEE (video of her reading college essay in the hospital): I now know that there is no time to waste. Life can change so suddenly.
She chronicled her journey on her Facebook page.
Michelle Renee: She fought tooth and nail every single day for every single step she took. She walked outta the hospital.
This time it was Michelle doing the cheerleading.
Dave Estey: The rehab started … in the hospital. But the real rehab was Michelle constantly on her, “we’re gonna do this.”
Michelle Renee: We were a total team. We just ended up going into full gear. We lived in a house with stairs. … She couldn’t do stairs anymore.
Tracy Smith: So once again, you’re out of a home that you’ve been living in?
Michelle Renee: Right, and I had to … become her full-time caregiver for about a year-and-a half, two years. … and rebuilding our life, again.
Despite the odds, she made it to college.
Michelle Renee: She relapsed three times her first year in college and had to come home. But she did it.
Dave Estey: She follows in her mom’s footsteps … I mean with the tenacity, and the never give up … philosophy that they have.
Breea is walking, talking proof.
“I would say I beat the odds,” said Breea Renee.
CBS News
Tracy Smith: So, they told you would never walk again?
Breea Renee: Yeah. I’d never walk again, never see again, never anything like that…
Tracy Smith: And?
Breea Renee: I would say I beat the odds.
Tracy Smith: Yet again.
Breea Renee: Yes, exactly.
But 20 years after their world first came crashing down, they’d be faced with the unimaginable once again. Christopher Butler could be released.
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
From the very beginning, the case hit close to home for prosecutor Tom Manning.
Tom Manning: The fact that there was a little girl. My daughter was the same age as Breea when this happened.
Nearly 20 years later, in June 2020, Christopher Butler was up for parole.
Michelle Renee: He’s the one who lied about me.
Manning made sure he was at the hearing.
Tracy Smith: And you had a plan going in.
Tom Manning: I did.
He saw a chance to set the record straight by asking Butler about the story he’d told on the stand.
Tom Manning: I told Michelle if I felt it was right, I was gonna go for it.
Tracy Smith: What’d you think … about that?
Michelle Renee: Go for it … ask away.
Tracy Smith: Even though that’s risky?
Michelle Renee: It’s a little risky … this guy could go to the grave with these lies.
The risk paid off. Butler recanted his whole story, admitting he and Michelle never had a relationship.
Tracy Smith: How did that feel to hear that?
In January 2020, when Christopher Butler became eligible for parole under California sentencing laws, prosecutor Tom Manning saw an opportunity to ask him about the story he’d told on the stand. Butler recanted his entire testimony, admitting he and Renee never had a relationship. Butler was denied parole, but Renee was free. “In a weird … way, I could breathe … I could exhale, finally, after all these years,” she said.
CBS News
Michelle Renee: Hmm … it’s about time … I wanted everybody who ever doubted me to read this parole transcript. I wanna blast it all over the internet … that there was never, ever a chance … that I would ever, ever have been involved in anything like this, ever.
Breea says it’s a bittersweet victory for her mom.
Breea Renee: It feels good, but it’s a little too late. … You can search my mom’s name and it can come up on the internet. You can’t take that back.
Dave Estey: Why is it take him so long to come clean? And it’s probably because he had an opportunity to be free.
Even though Butler was unequivocal that Michelle was not involved –
Michelle Renee: He still hasn’t really taken responsibility.
He blamed his old flame Lisa Ramirez. But Butler said he was sorry for what he’d put his victims through, and even said he’d read Michelle’s book more than once.
Tracy Smith: He … said some of the passages in your book really got to him.
Michelle Renee: Yeah … on the road trip to Alaska … I really started to think about what it would be like to try to just understand.
Michelle says that’s when she started to wonder about the people behind the masks.
Michelle Renee: This is someone’s son. … This is someone’s brother. This is someone’s grandson. …What happened to them in their life that got them to the point where they thought … the only option was to attack a mother and her daughter?
Tracy Smith: Do you accept Christopher Butler’s apology?
Michelle Renee: I do … Yeah, 1000%. … I appreciate him finally being honest after all this time … I hope he keeps digging deeper.
Breea Renee: Yeah. I forgave him a long time ago and I accept his apology.
But neither Breea nor Michelle want Butler released. He’s already been denied parole twice. The irony isn’t lost on Dave.
Dave Estey: All he really did is free everybody else … he’s held hostage with his lie.
Michelle Renee: In a very weird … way, I could breathe … I could exhale finally after all this time.
Robert Ortiz, left, and Christopher Huggins
ZUMA
While they don’t believe Butler has changed his ways, they feel very differently about the other two men who held them hostage.
Breea Renee: They confessed … they take accountability for what they did. And that’s a big thing.
Tracy Smith: Are you actually rooting for these guys to succeed at this point?
Breea Renee: Yes, yes. … They were younger … than what I am now … if they are doing the work, I want nothing but the best for them.
Especially Robert Ortiz.
Michelle Renee: At the sentencing Robert Ortiz is the only one that turned around and looked at me and said, “I’m sorry” … he mouthed it.
They wrote to Ortiz back in 2011 and received a reply 9 years later.
Michelle Renee: Out of respect for him, I’m not going to say everything that’s in the letter. … I can say that … it’s beautiful. … It’s heartfelt. … And … I can’t wait to see where that leads.
Tracy Smith: This is the young man who held a gun to your daughter’s head.
Michelle Renee: Yes, and she spoke at his parole hearing in his favor.
In the meantime, Michelle has written her follow-up bookabout the road trip that changed her point of view.
Michelle Renee: It is about healing … it’s called “Nine Days,” which is how long I was on the road to Alaska.
Dave Estey: I do believe that through this terrible … tragedy that something beautiful was meant to come about. … It has built these people into these incredible human beings.
And through it all, they say they wouldn’t change a thing — even the kidnapping.
Tracy Smith: So, if you look back at the last 20 years, what has this journey been about?
Michelle Renee: Raising a remarkable daughter … It’s the best thing I’ve ever done in my life, is be her mom.
Tracy Smith: It seems like both of you look at this at least a tiny bit as a gift.
Breea Renee: Uh-huh. Yeah … I wouldn’t change it. … it … gave us the chance to
build the bond that we have today. And it’s just gotten stronger … Yeah.
Produced by Gayane Keshishyan Mendez. Michael McHugh is the producer/editor. Emma Steele, Lauren Turner Dunn, and Danielle Arman are the associate producers. Greg McLaughlin and Diana Modica are the editors. Peter Schweitzer is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
A man suspected of kidnapping and torturing a woman in Southern Oregon is also suspected of killing two people before he died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound during a standoff Tuesday night, authorities said. Lilia Luciano reports.
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A suspect was arrested Tuesday in connection with a video which showed a man allegedly trying to abduct a barista through a drive-thru in Auburn, Washington.
Auburn police had released surveillance footage taken just after 5 a.m. Monday which appeared to show man in a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck grabbing an employee’s wrist and trying to use a looped zip-tie device as the barista tried to hand back cash. The video showed the barista break free as the man dropped the money and sped away.
Police noted the driver had a tattoo that appears to read “Chevrolet.”
UPDATE: After overwhelming support from the community, APD has arrested a suspect in this case. https://t.co/OG4z7a5m0T
A suspect was arrested after “overwhelming support from the community,” police said.
CBS affiliate KIRO-TV reported the barista was working alone at the time of the incident. The suspect’s name and the charges he faces were not immediately confirmed.
“They are in vulnerable positions because they’re usually controlling those spots by themselves at early hours in the morning when it’s dark outside,” Auburn police spokesperson Kolby Crossley said, according to KIRO. “But this barista did an awesome job of protecting herself and fighting this person off.”
According to Crossley, the suspect was arrested Tuesday at his Auburn home, KIRO-TV reported. Police searched his vehicle, where they found evidence linking him to the incident, Crossley disclosed.
RIDGELAND, Miss. — A former University of Mississippi and NFL football player has been arrested in Mississippi on kidnapping charges.
Jerrell Powe, 35, remained jailed Monday in the Jackson suburb of Ridgeland with no bail set. It’s unclear if he has a lawyer to speak for him.
Ridgeland Police Chief Brian Myers told WLBT-TV that Powe and another person were arrested on Thursday at a bank in the city.
Myers said the kidnapping began in Laurel, 75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of Jackson, and ended after the victim was able to contact Ridgeland police. He said the victim is safe.
Powe is scheduled to make an initial appearance before a judge on Tuesday.
Powe played defensive tackle for Ole Miss from 2008 to 2010. He finished with 69 tackles, seven sacks and an interception in 37 games. Powe was named Second-Team All-Southeastern Conference in 2009 and 2010.
The Kansas City Chiefs selected Powe in the sixth round of the 2011 NFL draft. He played in 12 games over three seasons for the Chiefs, garnering eight tackles and one sack. Powe played in 16 games for the Houston Texans in 2014, recording 10 tackles.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison for conspiring to abduct the Democrat and blow up a bridge to ease an escape.
Adam Fox returned to federal court Tuesday, four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids, Mich.
They were accused of being at the helm of a wild plot to whip up anti-government extremists just before the 2020 presidential election. Their arrest, as well as the capture of 12 others, was a stunning coda to a tumultuous year of racial strife and political turmoil in the U.S.
The government had pushed for a life sentence, saying Croft offered bomb-making skills and ideology while Fox was the “driving force urging their recruits to take up arms, kidnap the governor and kill those who stood in their way.”
But Judge Robert J. Jonker said that while Fox’s sentence was needed as a punishment and deterrent to future similar acts, the government’s request for life in prison is “not necessary to achieve those purposes.”
“It’s too much. Something less than life gets the job done in this case,” Jonker said, later adding that 16 years in prison “is still in my mind a very long time.”
In addition to the 16-year prison sentence, Fox will have to serve five years of supervised release.
Fox and Croft were convicted at a second trial in August, months after a different jury in Grand Rapids couldn’t reach a verdict but acquitted two other men. Croft, a trucker from Bear, Del., will be sentenced Wednesday.
Fox and Croft in 2020 met with like-minded provocateurs at a summit in Ohio, trained with weapons in Michigan and Wisconsin and took a ride to “put eyes” on Whitmer’s vacation home with night-vision goggles, according to evidence.
“People need to stop with the misplaced anger and place the anger where it should go, and that’s against our tyrannical … government,” Fox declared that spring, boiling over COVID-19 restrictions and perceived threats to gun ownership.
Whitmer wasn’t physically harmed. The FBI, which was secretly embedded in the group, broke things up by fall.
“They had no real plan for what to do with the governor if they actually seized her. Paradoxically, this made them more dangerous, not less,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said in a court filing ahead of the hearing.
In 2020, Fox, 39, was living in the basement of a Grand Rapids–area vacuum shop, the site of clandestine meetings with members of a paramilitary group and an undercover FBI agent. His lawyer said he was depressed, anxious and smoking marijuana daily.
Christopher Gibbons said a life sentence would be extreme.
Fox was regularly exposed to “inflammatory rhetoric” by FBI informants, especially Army veteran Dan Chappel, who “manipulated not only Fox’s sense of ‘patriotism’ but also his need for friendship, acceptance and male approval,” Gibbons said in a court filing.
He said prosecutors had exaggerated Fox’s capabilities, saying he was poor and lacked the capability to obtain a bomb and carry out the plan.
Two men who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and testified against Fox and Croft received substantial breaks: Ty Garbin already is free after a 2½-year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the media after signing a state budget bill in July.
AP/Carlos Osorio/File
In state court, three men recently were given lengthy sentences for assisting Fox earlier in the summer of 2020. Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim County, where Whitmer’s vacation home is located.
When the plot was extinguished, Whitmer, a Democrat, blamed then-President Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.” In August, 19 months after leaving office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal.”
NEW YORK — A California woman pleaded guilty on Thursday in connection with her unwitting role in a foiled plot to kidnap a prominent Iranian opposition activist living in New York City and take her back to Tehran.
U.S. prosecutors have not accused Niloufar Bahadorifar of participating in the plot to abduct Masih Alinejad, a journalist and vocal critic of the Iranian government for its treatment of women and other issues.
But authorities said four Iranians who plotted to kidnap the activist paid an American private investigator to watch her used Bahadorifar as a go-between.
Bahadorifar pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate U.S. economic sanctions on Iran by helping channel money to the investigator.
Her lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, told The New York Times that Bahadorifar was herself a victim of a “cancerous” Iranian regime.
“When Iran’s terrorist leaders aren’t slaughtering their own people,” he said, “they’re traveling the globe trying to kill their critics, including the despicable manipulation of Ms. Bahadorifar by an old family friend.”
Bahadorifar said in court she was unaware the money was used to pay the investigator to conduct surveillance. She told the judge she had sent the funds to the investigator via PayPal on behalf of a government official in Iran who was a longtime family friend.
An Iranian intelligence officer and others were charged in New York last year with attempting to kidnap Alinejad and take her back to Iran. The Officials in Iran have denied the charge.
The private investigator, who also was unaware his employers were actually Iranian agents, later cooperated with the FBI and has not been charged.
Alinejad became a U.S. citizen in 2019 after working for years as a journalist in Iran. She fled the country after its disputed 2009 presidential election and has become a prominent figure on Farsi-language satellite channels abroad that criticize Iran.
U.S. authorities are investigating whether Alinejad was the target of a second plot after the first one was disrupted.
Last summer, police arrested a man near her Brooklyn home with a loaded assault rifle and dozens of rounds of ammunition. Alinejad said a home security video had recorded the man outside her front door.
Bahadorifar will be sentenced April 7.
Iran has conducted a brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters who took to the streets in September after the death of a 22-year-old woman taken into custody by the morality police.
A delivery driver suspected in the murder of a 7-year-old girl in North Texas told investigators that he accidentally struck her with his van prior to strangling her, according to an arrest warrant.
The suspect, 31-year-old Tanner Lynn Horner, told Wise County Sheriff’s detectives that he was backing up a FedEx truck when he struck 7-year-old Athena Strand last Wednesday, per an arrest warrant obtained Thursday by CBS DFW.
Horner told investigators that, after hitting Strand, he panicked and placed her inside the truck, the arrest warrant reads. He also told police that, after hitting her, Strand was not seriously hurt and was “alive” and “talking to him,” according to the warrant.
He told detectives he then killed Strand because “she was going to tell her father about being hit by the FedEx truck,” the warrant states.
An undated photo of 7-year-old Athena Strand, who went missing from a home in Paradise, Texas, on Nov. 30, 2022. Her body was found two days later, on Dec. 2.
Maitlyn Gandy/Facebook
According to the warrant, Horner said that he initially tried to break Strand’s neck, but when that failed, he strangled her.
Strand was reported missing from her father and stepmother’s home in Paradise, Texas, on Nov. 30 prompting a massive search. Two days later, according to the warrant, Horner led investigators to her body in the Wise County town of Boyd, located about 10 miles from Paradise.
A contract driver for FedEx, Horner had delivered a package to the house at about the same time Strand disappeared, Wise County Sheriff’s officials had previously reported.
In a news conference Thursday in Decatur, Texas, Strand’s mother, Maitlyn Gandy, who resides in Oklahoma, said that the delivery was Strand’s Christmas present.
“The packages contained, ‘You Can Be Anything’ Barbies,” Gandy told reporters. “Athena was robbed of the opportunity to grow up to be anything she wanted to be. And this present, ordered out of innocence and love, is one she will never receive.”
Gandy also said that she was supposed to bring Strand “back home to Oklahoma after Christmas break.”
The warrant states that after Strand’s disappearance, investigators worked with Big Topspin, the contracting company hired by FedEx to deliver packages, to determine “which van and driver had made the delivery.”
The van was equipped with cameras that captured footage of the suspect placing a girl who fit Strand’s description in the van, the warrant reads.
When investigators located and interviewed Horner, he confessed to them that Strand was dead, the warrant said.
Horner, of Lake Worth, Texas, is being held on capital murder and aggravated kidnapping charges. His bail has been set at $1.5 million. He has no criminal history.
Paradise is located in the Dallas-Forth Worth-Arlington metro area, about 40 miles northwest of Fort Worth.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The leader of small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border had taken at least 20 wives, most of them minors, and punished followers who did not treat him as a prophet, newly filed federal court documents show.
Samuel Bateman was a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, until he left to start his own small offshoot group. He was supported financially by male followers who also gave up their own wives and children to be Bateman’s wives, according to an FBI affidavit.
The document filed Friday provides new insight about what investigators have found in a case that first became public in August. It accompanied charges of kidnapping and impeding a foreseeable prosecution against three of Bateman’s wives — Naomi Bistline, Donnae Barlow and Moretta Rose Johnson.
Bistline and Barlow are scheduled to appear in federal magistrate court in Flagstaff on Wednesday. Johnson is awaiting extradition from Washington state.
The women are accused of fleeing with eight of Bateman’s children, who were placed in Arizona state custody earlier this year. The children were found last week hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Spokane, Washington.
Bateman was arrested in August when someone spotted small fingers in the gap of a trailer he was hauling through Flagstaff. He posted bond but was arrested again and charged with obstructing justice in a federal investigation into whether children were being transported across state lines for sexual activity.
Court records allege that Bateman, 46, engaged in child sex trafficking and polygamy, but none of his current charges relate to those allegations. Polygamy is illegal in Arizona but was decriminalized in Utah in 2020.
Arizona Department of Child Services spokesman Darren DaRonco and FBI spokesman Kevin Smith declined to comment on the case Tuesday. Bistline’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment, and Barlow’s attorney declined to comment. Johnson didn’t have a publicly listed attorney.
The FBI affidavit filed in the women’s case largely centers on Bateman, who proclaimed himself a prophet in 2019. Bateman says he was told by former FLDS leader Warren Jeffs to invoke the “Spirit of God on these people.” The affidavit details explicit sexual acts that Bateman and his followers engaged in to fulfill “Godly duties.”
Jeffs is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for child sex abuse related to underage marriages.
Criminal defense attorney Michael Piccarreta, who represented Jeffs on Arizona charges that were dismissed, said the state has a history of trying to take a stand against polygamy by charging relatively minor offenses to build bigger cases.
“Whether this is the same tactic that has been used in the past or whether there’s more to the story, only time will tell,” he said.
The office of Bateman’s attorney in the federal case, Adam Zickerman, declined to comment Tuesday.
Bateman lived in Colorado City among a patchwork of devout members of the polygamous FLDS, ex-church members and those who don’t practice the beliefs. Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the mainstream church abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it.
Bateman often traveled to Nebraska where some of his other followers lived and internationally to Canada and Mexico for conferences.
When Bateman was arrested earlier this year, he instructed his followers to obtain passports and to delete messages sent through an encrypted system, authorities said.
He demanded that his followers confess publicly for any indiscretions, and shared those confessions widely, according to the FBI affidavit. He claimed the punishments, which ranged from a time out to public shaming and sexual activity, came from the Lord, the affidavit states.
The children identified by their initials in court documents have said little to authorities. The three children found in the trailer Bateman was hauling through Flagstaff — which had a makeshift toilet, a couch, camping chairs and no ventilation — told authorities they didn’t have any health or medical needs, a police report stated.
None of the girls placed in state custody in Arizona disclosed sexual abuse by Bateman during forensic interviews, though one said she was present during sexual activity, according to the FBI affidavit. But the girls often wrote in journals that were seized by the FBI. In them, several of the girls referenced intimate interactions with Bateman. Authorities believe the older girls influenced the younger ones not to talk about Bateman, the FBI said.
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Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Salt Lake City contributed to this story.
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The leader of small polygamous group near the Arizona-Utah border had taken at least 20 wives, most of them minors, and punished followers who did not treat him as a prophet, newly filed federal court documents show.
Samuel Bateman was a former member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, until he left to start his own small offshoot group. He was supported financially by male followers who also gave up their own wives and children to be Bateman’s wives, according to an FBI affidavit.
The document filed Friday provides new insight about what investigators have found in a case that first became public in August. It accompanied charges of kidnapping and impeding a foreseeable prosecution against three of Bateman’s wives — Naomi Bistline, Donnae Barlow and Moretta Rose Johnson.
Bistline and Barlow are scheduled to appear in federal magistrate court in Flagstaff on Wednesday. Johnson is awaiting extradition from Washington state.
The women are accused of fleeing with eight of Bateman’s children, who were placed in Arizona state custody earlier this year. The children were found last week hundreds of miles (kilometers) away in Spokane, Washington.
Bateman was arrested in August when someone spotted small fingers in the gap of a trailer he was hauling through Flagstaff. He posted bond but was arrested again and charged with obstructing justice in a federal investigation into whether children were being transported across state lines for sexual activity.
Court records allege that Bateman, 46, engaged in child sex trafficking and polygamy, but none of his current charges relate to those allegations. Polygamy is illegal in Arizona but was decriminalized in Utah in 2020.
Arizona Department of Child Services spokesman Darren DaRonco and FBI spokesman Kevin Smith declined to comment on the case Tuesday. Bistline’s attorney didn’t respond to a request for comment, and Barlow’s attorney declined to comment. Johnson didn’t have a publicly listed attorney.
The FBI affidavit filed in the women’s case largely centers on Bateman, who proclaimed himself a prophet in 2019. Bateman says he was told by former FLDS leader Warren Jeffs to invoke the “Spirit of God on these people.” The affidavit details explicit sexual acts that Bateman and his followers engaged in to fulfill “Godly duties.”
Jeffs is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for child sex abuse related to underage marriages.
Criminal defense attorney Michael Piccarreta, who represented Jeffs on Arizona charges that were dismissed, said the state has a history of trying to take a stand against polygamy by charging relatively minor offenses to build bigger cases.
“Whether this is the same tactic that has been used in the past or whether there’s more to the story, only time will tell,” he said.
The office of Bateman’s attorney in the federal case, Adam Zickerman, declined to comment Tuesday.
Bateman lived in Colorado City among a patchwork of devout members of the polygamous FLDS, ex-church members and those who don’t practice the beliefs. Polygamy is a legacy of the early teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but the mainstream church abandoned the practice in 1890 and now strictly prohibits it.
Bateman often traveled to Nebraska where some of his other followers lived and internationally to Canada and Mexico for conferences.
When Bateman was arrested earlier this year, he instructed his followers to obtain passports and to delete messages sent through an encrypted system, authorities said.
He demanded that his followers confess publicly for any indiscretions, and shared those confessions widely, according to the FBI affidavit. He claimed the punishments, which ranged from a time out to public shaming and sexual activity, came from the Lord, the affidavit states.
The children identified by their initials in court documents have said little to authorities. The three children found in the trailer Bateman was hauling through Flagstaff — which had a makeshift toilet, a couch, camping chairs and no ventilation — told authorities they didn’t have any health or medical needs, a police report stated.
None of the girls placed in state custody in Arizona disclosed sexual abuse by Bateman during forensic interviews, though one said she was present during sexual activity, according to the FBI affidavit. But the girls often wrote in journals that were seized by the FBI. In them, several of the girls referenced intimate interactions with Bateman. Authorities believe the older girls influenced the younger ones not to talk about Bateman, the FBI said.
———
Associated Press writer Sam Metz in Salt Lake City contributed to this story.
ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Rail service in Nigeria’s capital city resumed on Monday, eight months after assailants attacked a train with explosives and gunfire, killing seven people and abducting dozens of passengers.
Only a handful of passengers and armed security personnel were aboard the first trip from Abuja to neighboring Kaduna state.
“We are not scared because of the security measures they took,” said passenger Jafaar Sanusi. “There were many security forces in the train for protection.”
Authorities have blamed the brazen attack in March on the armed groups who have been kidnapping people for ransom in northwestern Nigeria.
Paschal Nnorli, general manager of the Abuja-Kaduna train service, said that officials had succeeded in getting the release of the abducted passengers and had stepped up security on the route.
“Insecurity is getting higher and higher on a daily basis in Nigeria, it is not peculiar to rail operations but we shall continue to do our best,” he said.
The train service is a key means of transport for many in Nigeria’s capital, a city of 3.6 million, because the major road to the city suffers frequent kidnappings and not many can afford air travel.
The rural community of Paradise, Texas, came together Monday night to mourn the loss of a 7-year-old Athena Strand, whose body was found two days after she was reported missing. Police said a 31-year-old delivery driver was arrested in connection with her death.
Neighbors on Monday tied bows and balloons to their homes in memory of Strand, who loved the color pink.
Wise County Sheriff’s deputies said Strand was taken from the driveway of her home last Wednesday. After an extensive search, her body was found Friday.
“It hurts our hearts to know that that child died,” said Wise County Sheriff Lane Akin.
Investigators said Tanner Lynn Horner, a contract worker for FedEx, delivered a package to the house at about the same time Strand disappeared and took him into custody. Horner allegedly confessed to the kidnapping and killing of the girl, officials said.
Over the weekend, FedEx issued a statement saying, “Our thoughts are with the family of Athena Strand during this most difficult time.”
Strand’s grandfather posted a statement on Facebook, saying in part, “I want 5 minutes alone in a cell with the psycho that took our Athena away from us, but there’s a soft gentle voice in the back of my head telling me I need to forgive him.”
Phile Erickson, the associate pastor at First Baptist Church of Cottondale in Paradise, whose son was in Strand’s class at school, said the tragedy is “a good wake-up call to parents just in general just to be more aware of everything … And so, you know, just keep loving them. Hug them tighter.”
Horner had no criminal history. He’s being held on capital murder and aggravated kidnapping charges with a bond set for $1.5 million.
FBI statistics show stranger abductions are rare and account for less than 1% of all kidnappings in 2021.
