RAPID CITY, SD — One in three people convicted in South Dakota of carjacking and kidnapping an FBI employee 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 found guilty in January. Alvarez-Sorto was also convicted of unlawfully entering the US after being deported to his home country of El Salvador.
A third suspect, 29-year-old Karla Lopez-Gutierrez, pleaded guilty in August. Morales and Lopez-Gutierrez will both be sentenced on April 26.
Prosecutors said the trio left Greeley, Colorado, on May 5, 2022, and were on a “drug smuggling trip” to South Dakota in a Ford Expedition. With gas running low on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Morales told the others to “take over” a new vehicle, Lopez-Gutierrez testified in January.
A short time later, the FBI employee speeding in his Dodge Durango spotted 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 come along.
“I am still haunted by the trauma you caused me,” the victim told Alvarez-Sorto during the sentencing hearing. He said Alvarez-Sorto threatened his family and held a gun to the back of his head as he lay face down in the Badlands.
When the group stopped to buy gas and zip ties in the city of Hermosa, South Dakota, the victim managed to escape.
Morales and Alvarez-Sorto were arrested a week later in Greeley. Lopez-Gutierrez was arrested in August 2022 in Loveland, Colorado.
Alvarez-Sorto’s attorney, Alecia Fuller, said his client was remorseful, noting that family members had abused Alvarez-Sorto as a child.