3 plead guilty to kidnapping US Postal Service employee in 2019
[MGN]
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WHEC) — Three people from Rochester have all pleaded guilty to charges of kidnapping a federal employee.
The charges stem from the Nov. 16, 2019, kidnapping of a U.S. Postal Service employee.
The Western District of New York Wednesday announced Mark Rogers, 38, Joseph Way, 36 and Tashara Levans, 37, all pleaded guilty.
Court paperwork details the crime, saying the three of them kidnapped the mail carrier while she was on her route, delivering mail when Rogers and Way confronted her about a package she delivered to them that they were expecting to contain cocaine. They accused her of taking the drugs and told her to get into a car that Levans was driving.
Over the next two hours, they threatened to shoot and kill the victim and her children if she did not provide either the cocaine they believed she stole or $70,000, which was the street value of the cocaine.
The mail carrier was not hurt according to prosecutors.
They are scheduled to be sentenced on April 11, 2022.
They face a maximum of life in prison.