| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 14, 2008 WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAN |
OAKLAND – United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced that on April 11, 2008, Julio Lopez Morales, 31, of Guatemala, pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit hostage taking, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Lopez Morales was charged by Information on December 7, 2007.
As part of the plea agreement, Lopez Morales admitted on February 2, 2007, he drove three women, one infant, and one man for money from Arizona to California. All of these individuals were illegally present in the United States. Prior to arriving in the Oakland, California area, Lopez Morales called the boyfriend of one of the passengers to arrange for the location to meet and to obtain additional money before Lopez Morales would release the man’s girlfriend and child. Once in Oakland, Lopez Morales drove to a Walgreens in the Fruitvale area where he parked in the parking lot and sought to collect additional money from the boyfriend at the instruction of another co-conspirator. After the boyfriend refused to pay the additional money, Lopez Morales drove away from the Walgreens parking lot in Oakland, California with the girlfriend still in the car. Lopez Morales then drove from Oakland, California to Fairfield, California. There, Lopez Morales rented a room using a false name, and he took the girlfriend and the other passengers into the room. Shortly thereafter, Lopez Morales left the room and police officers and federal agents found the girlfriend in the room.
The maximum statutory penalty for the charge is 5 years imprisonment and a fine of $250,000. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the Court after consideration of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 U.S.C. § 3553. Lopez Morales is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. before United States District Judge D. Lowell Jensen.
Shashi Kewalramani is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Lead Legal Assistant Cynthia Daniel. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement .
Further Information:
Case #: CR 07-0777 DLJ
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Joshua Eaton at (415) 436-6958 or by email at Josh.Eaton@usdoj.gov.