Two men plead guilty to kidnapping of immigrants

Posted: Friday, April 18, 2014 7:05 pm
Ildefonso Ortiz | The Monitor

Posted on Apr 18, 2014McALLEN —Two men pleaded guilty to kidnapping a group of men from Central and South America at gunpoint and holding them for ransom.

On Thursday afternoon, 37-year-old Julio Vargas Hernandez and 31-year-old Gustavo Morales Manriquez went before U.S. District Judge Randy Crane and pleaded guilty to hostage taking, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.


The two men had entered into a plea agreement where prosecutors would recommend a lighter sentence in exchange for their plea. But Crane warned them that he was the one who would hand down the decision and he didn’t have to follow their recommendation.

The two men nodded and voiced their decision to enter the plea one by one.

The men’s guilty pleas came after Pharr police responded to a kidnapping call in February where Uriel Lucero Velazquez said he and another group of people had crossed the Rio Grande and were staying in a stash house in Mercedes when Vargas, Morales and another man took them at gunpoint to another stash house.

With a handgun placed against his head, Velazquez was ordered to call his relatives back home and ask for a $500 to $1,000 in ransom.

The two men are quoted in court records as claiming to have killed before — and to have no qualms about killing other immigrants if the ransom was not paid. Crane set the sentencing for the two men for July.

Two men plead guilty to kidnapping of immigrantswww.themonitor.com/news/local/two-men-plead-guilty-to-kidnapping-of-immigrants/article_5a574b00-c756-11e3-bef9-001a4bcf6878.html