A third co-defendant charged with helping a mother abduct her 4-year-old daughter during a supervised visit in October at Vancouver Mall was sentenced Thursday to 17 months in prison.
Erick Garcia-Valdovinos, 18, pleaded guilty in Clark County Superior Court to second-degree kidnapping, theft of a motor vehicle and first-degree custodial interference.
His Vancouver attorney, Louis Byrd Jr., said his client decided to take a plea deal because the risk of going to trial was too great. If convicted at trial, Garcia-Valdovinos would have faced a standard sentencing range of 10 to 12 1/2 years in prison.
Byrd said Garcia-Valdovinos was the least culpable of the four co-defendants and “simply got in over his head.”
Esmeralda Lopez-Lopez, 21, allegedly kidnapped her daughter, Aranza Ochoa-Lopez, on Oct. 25 after asking permission to take the child to the restroom at the mall during a Child Protective Services supervised visit, according to a search warrant affidavit. She fled with the girl to a stolen vehicle, where a 16-year-old accomplice waited.
Family says Lopez-Lopez and her daughter are in Mexico.
Garcia-Valdovinos, along with Francisco Javier Hernandez-Reyes, 18, Sherri Franchesca Trigueros, 16, and Alejandro Xulu-Sop, 15, were arrested in connection with the child abduction and kidnapping of a Centralia man, whose car was stolen and used in the plot, according to court records.
Both Hernandez-Reyes and Trigueros pleaded guilty and were sentenced in January to 17 months in prison and 129 weeks in a juvenile facility, respectively. Hernandez-Reyes was convicted of the same charges as Garcia-Valdovinos. Trigueros pleaded guilty to first-degree kidnapping.
The case for a fourth co-defendant, Alejandro Xulu-Sop, 15, is still pending in Clark County Juvenile Court.
The victim, Jose Orellana-Gomez, told investigators that Lopez-Lopez lured him to her Vancouver apartment under the premise that she needed a ride to Centralia. But when he got to the apartment, several people — armed with kitchen knives and wearing masks — entered the apartment, pushed him down, bound him with duct tape and carried him to a bedroom where he was taped to an office chair, according to court records.
They blindfolded and gagged him, and placed headphones over his ears. The assailants demanded his car, a red Chevrolet Cobalt, and told him they would only need it a few hours. They also took his debit card and demanded the PIN, court documents say.
Deputy Prosecutor Julie Carmena said Orellana-Gomez was held in the room for more than 12 hours. He told investigators that he managed to free himself from the chair, jumped from a second-story window — his hands and ankles still bound with tape — and hopped to a passer-by who called 911 for him, court records state.
Garcia-Valdovinos bought the duct tape and guarded the victim, Carmena said.
Through a Spanish interpreter, Garcia-Valdovinos said he will try to avoid getting into trouble in the future and wants to move forward from this incident.
In addition to his prison sentence, he will serve 18 months of community custody and must pay nearly $1,550 in restitution. Garcia-Valdovinos is not to have contact with the victim or his co-defendants.
Jessica Prokop: 360-735-4551; jessica.prokop@columbian.com; twitter.com/JProkop16
