By The newspaper
01 Sep 2023, 09:29 AM EDT
Valerie Rosario was sentenced to 8 years in prison after pleading guilty to a violent kidnapping that left a man burned, gagged and near death in New York in 2022.
Judge Felicia Mennin said the 23-year-old committed an “heinous” crime. In June Rosario pleaded guilty to attempted assault and kidnapping for luring a man she met on Instagram and summoning him to the Bronx, where he was held captive and tortured for 24 hours by a group of sadists who demanded a $100,000 ransom at a FaceTime call to his brother, in February 2022.
What they did to the victim in this case is absolutely reprehensible.”
“I have to say that I have not seen a set of facts as egregious as these in a long time,” Judge Mennin told Rosario before handing down the sentence, agreed to as part of an amicable agreement with prosecutors.
“What was done to the victim in this case is absolutely reprehensible and people who live in a civilized society should not do that to each other,” the judge said furiously, according to New York Post.
Rosario surprised the court yesterday when it was announced that she had fired her lawyer and wanted to retract her guilty plea, exposing herself to a potential trial that faced 25 years in prison. But an hour later she changed her mind again and resumed her agreement with the prosecution.
Prosecutors said the defendant, a Manhattan Lower East Side resident, lured the “complete stranger” into an apartment on Marble Hill Avenue after they connected on Instagram and that the attackers were motivated by money she was displaying in her account on Instagram. that social network.
Rosario and the accomplices then allegedly stripped the victim, “placed him in a bathtub, poured flammable substances on him, and burned him with a flame” all over his body. They also tormented him with a knife, hitting him “in the legs, back and body,” the criminal complaint detailed.
When the kidnappers called a brother of the hostage, police officers were able to track down one of the suspects. Police found the unidentified victim in Queens about 24 hours after he was abducted. He was bound and gagged in the back of a pickup truck, barely holding on for dear life. He was treated at a hospital for multiple burns and stab wounds to his face, body, back and legs.