Kidnapped 17-Year-Old Rescued from Motel Room in California After 4 Days Being Held for Ransom

Authorities said the defendants allegedly started a traffic incident and kidnapped the teen in San Bernardino County

Three men from Santa Maria, California have been charged with kidnapping a 17-year-old boy and holding him for ransom.

In a news release Friday, the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California announced that Fidel Jesús Patino Jaimes, 22, Jair Tomás Ramos Domínguez, 26, and Ezequiel Felix López, 27, have all been charged with kidnapping the unnamed teen on the morning of Sept. 18.

Citing an affidavit, the release stated that the alleged kidnapping took place after the defendants started a traffic incident that resulted in the teen crashing his car into their Jeep Grand Cherokee in San Bernardino County. When the teen got out of his vehicle following the crash, the defendants allegedly grabbed and forced him into their Jeep, per the release.

Related: Tanya Kach Was Kidnapped at Age 14 and Held Captive for a Decade. She Says Her Dad Partially Blamed Her

Later that afternoon, authorities said the victim’s mother received a phone call demanding $500,000 be sent to an unspecified location in Nogales, Mexico, in exchange for the boy. The caller also blamed the abduction on the teen’s father, according to the release. 

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A video was later allegedly sent to the victim’s mother from another Mexican phone number via WhatsApp that showed footage of the victim in the back seat of the Jeep Grand Cherokee, authorities added in the release. The teen was seen reading from a script, saying that the kidnapping was his father’s fault for something that happened in New York.

For several days afterward, the mother allegedly received calls from a number of different Mexican phone numbers which included threats to cut off parts of the victim's body if the payment wasn’t made. The ransom demand, which went unpaid, was also reduced to $100,000, according to the release.

Related: At 13, She Was Abducted and Tortured by an Online Predator. Now, She's Determined to Keep Other Kids Safe

On Friday, law enforcement tracked the defendants to a Santa Maria motel based on identification of the vehicle used in the alleged kidnapping through a Facebook Marketplace post and footage from a Ring door camera that recorded the abduction, said the attorney's office.

Along with the defendants — one of whom reportedly threw a firearm on the floor — authorities found the teen lying on a floor in a corner of a motel room, per the affidavit.

Related: How Jayme Closs, Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard and Others Survived Headline-Making Abductions

“Few things can be as terrorizing to a parent as having your child kidnapped and held for ransom under threat of physical harm," United States Attorney Martin Estrada said in a statement. "Together with the FBI and our local law enforcement partners, we have acted swiftly to rescue the victim and bring the abductors to justice. I commend the agents and officers for their heroic efforts to free the victim and prevent a devastating tragedy from occurring.”

The defendants are scheduled to appear at the U.S. District Court in Riverside on Monday afternoon, said authorities. Kidnapping is a felony in California and carries a statutory maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

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