A 23-year-old man has been sentenced to seven years in prison followed by 250 hours of community service after pleading guilty in a bizarre D.C. kidnapping case.
Ethan Moye-Gordon, of no fixed address, was 22 when he was arrested by D.C. Police in Dec. of 2018 and charged with kidnapping while armed.
In a statement provided to the court, the kidnapping victim said “words cannot convey the horror and shock I experienced,” according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie K. Liu.
The victim was in D.C. for a convention when he was kidnapped late Saturday night, Nov. 10, 2018. Taken at gunpoint off the street near Logan Circle in Northwest, D.C., the out-of-towner spent a long night with three captors who drove him around the District and Maryland to various ATMs for money.
Events detailed in federal court documents include the victim smoking pot to try to build rapport with his captors, who forced him to drink a bottle of Hennessy and call his bank to increase his withdrawal limit. Eventually more than $2,600 was withdrawn from the victim’s account.
At one point, after being put in the car’s trunk, the victim pulled the latch and briefly escaped before he was recaptured and beaten up. Eventually, after falling asleep due to the alcohol, the victim was left in Southeast around 7:30 a.m. on Nov 11.
About three hours later, Moye-Gordon and two other suspects were arrested after a traffic stop in Arlington, Va. The status of the other two suspects’ cases is unknown.
