Woman Sentenced 28 Years for Drug-Related Kidnapping

An eastern Pennsylvania woman has been sentenced to 28 years in prison in the kidnapping of a teenage girl over a drug debt.
 
Grace Perez-Jimenez, 27, of Reading, who pleaded guilty last summer to conspiracy, kidnapping and drug and firearms offenses, was sentenced Friday in federal court in Philadelphia, The Reading Eagle reported.
 
Perez-Jimenez sold $500 worth of crack cocaine to a Reading woman but wasn't paid, so she and another woman kidnapped the woman's 14-year-old daughter in November 2011 as she walked home from school, authorities said.
 
Prosecutors alleged that she threatened the girl while waving a gun, saying: "You see this right here? If I don't get my money, you may not be going home to Mom.'' The two then took the girl to a house in Reading, blindfolded her and handcuffed her to a chair, authorities said.
 
City police aided the girl's mother in arranging a payment of $500, which the defendant took to Philadelphia along with the teenager to buy drugs to sell in Reading, authorities said. After a second $500 random payment, the girl was freed unharmed with the threat that she and her family would be killed if anyone told police.
 
Perez-Jimenez was also ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and $700 assessment and spend five years on supervised release after she finishes her prison sentence.
 
Co-defendant Samantha Conrad was sentenced in December to 7{ years. She told the judge she regretted taking part in the kidnapping rather than protecting the girl.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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