RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — The last two members of a trio who carjacked and kidnapped an FBI employee in South Dakota in 2022 have been sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.
Deyvin Morales was sentenced Friday to 47 years in prison. At the same hearing, Karla Lopez-Gutierrez was sentenced to more than 26 years in prison.
The third person involved in the crime, Juan Alvarez-Sorto, was sentenced earlier this month to 37 years.
The crime happened in 2022. On May 5th of that year, Juan Francisco Alvarez-Sorto, 25, Deyvin Morales, 29, and Karla Alejandra Lopez-Gutierrez were traveling from Colorado to South Dakota to sell drugs, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of South Dakota. However, the three encountered law enforcement and ended up in a high speed chase, officials said.
While hiding out after the chase, the three ”decided to carjack the next vehicle to come along,” prosecutors said. That vehicle happened to be driven by an FBI employee, who stopped when they pulled up behind him, according to officials. “After the employee pulled his vehicle over, he next realized there was a male at his window pointing a rifle at him and ordering him to get out of the vehicle,” officials said.
Morales and Alvarez-Sorto ordered the FBI employee to get on the ground behind his vehicle while Alvarez-Sorto held a rifle at the back of his head, officials said. Then, the three took his wallet, money, credit cards, car keys, watch, and phones, prosecutors said. After robbing him, the three ordered the FBI employee into the back seat of his vehicle. Alvarez-Sorto sat in the front passenger seat holding a rifle, Morales sat next to the employee in the rear driver’s seat with two handguns in his waistband. Lopez-Gutierrez got in the driver’s seat and drove away, officials said. “They told the employee to cooperate and he would be safe, but if he did not, the group would come after his family and that they knew where he lived,” officials said.
They drove to Hermosa and stopped at a gas station. While there, Lopez-Gutierrez went inside and Alvarez-Sorto locked all the doors. Lopez-Gutierrez came back to the vehicle with zip ties and a gas can, according to officials. She turned the car around and drove up to a gas pump. The employee then saw an opportunity to escape. When Lopez-Gutierrez got out to pump gas, the doors unlocked for a moment. That’s when he fought his way out and ran inside the gas station, officials said. The three took off in the vehicle and drove to Rapid City, where they ditched the FBI vehicle and found another, officials said. Alvarez-Sorto and Morales were eventually tracked down and arrested in Colorado.
A lawyer for Alvarez-Sorto says he is remorseful for the crime.
