High court upholds reversal in kidnapping

An appellate court’s decision reversing the conviction of a Wilkinsburg man on a charge of kidnapping his daughter has been upheld by the state’s highest court.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision on Wednesday was a victory for Tex Ortiz, 35.

He had been found guilty by a jury of kidnapping his 2-yearold and interference with custody of children in May 2015. But the state Superior Court in 2017 overturned his conviction for the kidnapping.

The judges said that prosecutors failed to show that Ortiz took the girl “to facilitate the commission of another felony” as required by state law. Ortiz and his lawyer had argued that the charge of interference with custody against a mother or father can’t be counted as a felony for the purpose of also charging the parent with

kidnapping his or her child.

The Supreme Court agreed on a 4-3 opinion.

“We hold that [the interference charge], committed by a biological parent, cannot serve as a predicate felony to support a conviction for kidnapping of a minor” under state law, wrote Chief Justice Thomas Saylor.

Ortiz was raising the girl after her mother’s death in 2014. But her maternal grandparents wanted custody and filed an emergency court petition to get it.

Ortiz said no one told him about the hearing. When he didn’t show up, a judge granted custody to the grandparents.

Ortiz fled with the girl instead. Deputy sheriffs caught him in Altoona a couple of weeks later.

A county judge, Donna Jo McDaniel, sentenced him to eight to 22 years.

He appealed on several grounds, including the kidnapping issue, and the Superior Court ruled in his favor. The district attorney’s office then appealed, arguing that it had proved Ortiz knew he didn’t have legal custody of the girl when he took her and that the kidnapping charge was appropriate.

Ortiz’s public defender had argued that he didn’t take the girl to facilitate a felony but to retain his parental bond with her.