Man who helped kidnap storage warehouse manager gets 5 years

PORTLAND — One of two men who kidnapped a Public Storage warehouse manager at gunpoint, mistakenly thinking the manager had stolen their nearly 500 pounds of marijuana, was sentenced Wednesday to five years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones issued the sentence for Trent Lamar Knight, 31, after he pleaded guilty in May to distributing marijuana and using a firearm in the course of drug trafficking, the Oregonian/OregonLive reported.

The judge decided to issue a shorter sentence than he gave Knight’s co-defendant, Jody Tremayne Wafer earlier this month, noting that Wafer was the ringleader. Wafer was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Knight and Wafer, both of Houston, were led to believe that their marijuana had been stolen when it actually had been seized in a secret raid by federal agents.

Both forced the warehouse manager into an empty unit, bound his wrists and held him at gunpoint on Dec. 2, 2017, demanding to know what happened to the drugs, according to court testimony and records.

Knight told the judge he thinks daily about what he did to the storage manager and apologized.