Two more people sentenced for carjacking and kidnapping an FBI employee in South Dakota
RAPID CITY, SD — The last two members of a trio that 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. During the same hearing, 29-year-old Karla Lopez-Gutierrez was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison.
The third person involved in the crime, Juan Alvarez-Sorto, 25, was sentenced to 37 years earlier this month.
Alvarez-Sorto and Morales had pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, carjacking and other crimes but were convicted in January. Alvarez-Sorto was also convicted of unlawfully entering the US after being deported to his home country of El Salvador. Lopez-Gutierrez pleaded guilty in August to aiding and abetting kidnapping and a weapons charge.
During the hearing on Friday, the victim said the attackers “showed me no mercy” before he was able to escape.
“You already had everything from me,” 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 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. The victim 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 town of Hermosa, South Dakota, the victim decided to try to escape. He said during the hearing that he crawled over Morales and “clawed” his way out of the car. Morales grabbed his jacket and the victim fell, but managed to get up. He “ran like a chicken without my head” to get away, he said.
Morales and Alvarez-Sorto were arrested a week later in Greeley. Lopez-Gutierrez was arrested in August 2022 in Loveland, Colorado.
Morales’ attorney, Jonathan McCoy, asked the judge for a prison sentence of 20 to 25 years. He said Morales was granted asylum in 2017 because a gang in Guatemala wanted to kill him.
“Deportation sentences him to death in Guatemala,” McCoy said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeremy Jehangiri said Morales wasted “the good will of our country” by committing the crime.
“It’s absolutely a shame,” Jehangiri said. “Asylum was for escaping gang activity, and now you are engaging in gang activity.”
Lopez-Gutierrez’s lawyer also demanded a lenient sentence, partly because she is a mother of three children and has taken responsibility for her role.
“I am very sorry,” Lopez-Gutierrez said through tears during the hearing. “I apologize to him and his family for the pain I have caused.”