A Honduran nationwide who crossed the border into the U.S. instructed police that her child was stolen and held for ransom after an El Paso, Texas, girl supplied her a trip earlier this yr, in accordance with a federal felony grievance.
The suspect, Jenna Leigh Roark, was arrested final month on expenses of hostage taking and aiding and abetting. Lawyer info was not listed for Roark within the courtroom paperwork.
The FBI was alerted to the case on Sept. 26 when the St. Petersburg Police Division in Florida contacted them a couple of girl who stated she had been separated from her toddler son since Could and was being extorted for cash. On the time the girl made the grievance, she was dwelling in Florida.
The girl, who isn’t named, instructed police that she crossed the border from Mexico and approached a person and girl in an El Paso condo advanced in search of instructions to the bus station, the grievance states.
The girl stated that Roark stated her identify was “Jenna” and the pair supplied her a trip to the station. In the course of the drive, Roark instructed the girl that she would hold the girl’s son and the 2 ladies exchanged telephone numbers, it says.
“Jane would periodically ship sufferer photos and movies of son and sufferer and son would communicate on the telephone two to a few occasions every week,” the grievance states.
However quickly after, Roark allegedly instructed the girl that she needed to pay $8,000 to get her son again. The grievance alleges that Roark later dropped the value to $5,800.
Roark was arrested on Sept. 16 by the Texas Division of Public Security in reference to an unrelated incident. Shortly earlier than she was taken into custody, she had stopped at a motel and picked up three undocumented folks, in accordance with the grievance.
When Roark was arrested, one among her daughters was within the entrance seat of the car holding an toddler son, the FBI wrote within the grievance. On the time, regulation enforcement didn’t know the son had been allegedly stolen.
The grievance says that Roark instructed regulation enforcement that the boy was her different daughter’s baby. That daughter arrived shortly thereafter, in accordance with the grievance, however stated that the kid belonged to her fiancé. The daughter additionally gave regulation enforcement a birthday for the boy which differed from what Roark stated.
As a result of conflicting info, the boy was positioned within the care of Baby Protecting Providers as regulation enforcement investigated. It was greater than every week later when authorities in Texas discovered that the kid belonged to the sufferer out of Florida.
Throughout an interview with investigators, Roark allegedly stated that she and her husband have been in hassle with the mafia and that the newborn was given to them below the directions that they’d “take care of the kid till cost by Sufferer was made,” in accordance with the grievance.
The U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in El Paso, which is prosecuting the case, didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Tuesday.
