Three men allegedly held Hackensack teen for ransom, tortured him after failed drug deal
Federal authorities arrested three suspects from Brooklyn, who they say held an 18-year-old Hackensack resident for ransom after a botched drug deal, allegedly torturing their victim for days until leaving the teen battered and bloody alongside a highway in Queens.
Dennis Reyes Mora, 37, Alexander Cruz, 26, and Cindy Aleman Fernandez, 27, all from Brooklyn's Brownsville section, were charged by federal prosecutors with conspiracy to commit kidnapping. However, the official complaint from the Justice Department refers to at least two other unnamed individuals said to have been involved in the potential drug deal and its resulting abduction.
According to the complaint, the teen met Cruz, Mora and Fernandez, as well as one of the unidentified co-conspirators, near his home in Hackensack on March 17 to discuss the transaction.
The four suspects drove the victim to Delaware, where a fourth suspect arrived, the Justice Department says. But during the meeting, an argument erupted over the terms of the drug deal, and the Hackensack teen was bound with tape and stabbed twice in the leg as he was forced back into one defendant's vehicle and taken to the house in Queens.
At the location in Queens, the victim was further restrained with tape, was threatened with a knife, had gasoline rubbed in his eyes and was burned with cigarettes while one of the kidnappers allegedly looked on in laughter, the complaint says.
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The abductors forced the victim to call family members and demand a $45,000 ransom, which continued to climb in value with subsequent phone calls, at one point reaching $60,000, the Justice Department says.
Close to midnight on March 21, the victim's mother left $20,000 at a predetermined drop-off, and the teen was released near the Jackie Robinson Parkway still suffering days later from the stab wounds to his leg.
After the victim's safe recovery, investigators traced more than 100 calls placed between the teen's phone and two other accounts allegedly attached to Mora and Fernandez's addresses in Brooklyn, according to the complaint.
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Meanwhile, a year-old parking ticket from the area of Mora's home led authorities to Cruz, the FBI said.
On March 27, using cell location data, authorities executed a search warrant on the house in Queens, where they discovered traces of blood, a can of gasoline and tape believed to have been used in the kidnapping.
That same day, authorities raided the addresses in Brooklyn connected to Mora's and Fernandez's phones, where they found all three defendants, one of the unidentified conspirators and further items believed to be connected to the abduction, including a bloody shoe and $26,000 in cash matching the serial numbers of the bills used to pay the ransom.
If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, as well as a $250,000 fine.
Rahul Sharma, who represents Mora through the federal public defender's office, said on Friday he had no comment on his client's case. An attorney for Fernandez had not responded to a request for comment as of Friday afternoon.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Hackensack NJ teen held for ransom, tortured after drug deal
