NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A Honduran national was sentenced Friday to more than 11 years in prison after a witness who testified in a federal racketeering trial against MS-13 members was kidnapped and assaulted in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
The DOJ said Bayron Wuifredo Santos-Recarte — an MS-13 member who entered the U.S. illegally — was sentenced on Friday, April 18 to 135 months for kidnapping, retaliating against a federal witness, and unlawful possession of a firearm.
According to court documents and statements made in court, 27-year-old Santos-Recarte and other associates of La Mara Salvatrucha 13 — better known as MS-13 — kidnapped a former federal witness at gunpoint in the parking lot of a Nashville laundromat on Nov. 5, 2023. The witness was reportedly kidnapped because he had testified in a trial eight months earlier that MS-13 members tried to shoot and kill him on two occasions over a drug dispute.
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Officials said the victim was held in a truck for hours while Santos-Recarte and others assaulted him with a gun, hammer, and machete; questioned him about why he testified against MS-13; and threatened him with death…