Janette Ramirez, a 34-year-old resident of New Orleans, has admitted guilt to charges of interstate transmission of a ransom demand after orchestrating a plot that terrorized both a kidnapped individual and their loved ones. In her plea before U.S. District Judge Barry W. Ashe last Thursday, Ramirez acknowledged her role in a grim saga of abduction and extortion, as detailed in documents from the court.
The victim found themselves at the mercy of kidnappers, hands and legs bound, under the watch of a gun in Hector Mondragon-Flores’s apartment. Their freedom was priced at $7,000, and negotiations for their release took a harrowing turn when the victim’s father parted with $3,000 in cash, only for Edwin Salgado-Nunez to be nabbed by the New Orleans Police Department, during the exchange. According to a U.S. Department of Justice statement, as the situation escalated, the ordeal was far from over for the victim.
Following the botched ransom exchange, the unwilling guest was shuffled to Ramirez’s residence. There, a desperate appeal for assistance was staged—with Ramirez translating a call to the victim’s girlfriend for more money, only this time, through her very own CashApp, sending forth requests that were, in stark terms, demands for a person’s salvation…