Kidnapped as children, pair grow to be kidnappers
Kidnappings in Mexico and Lakewood of the sons of high rollers in the Mexican pastime of horse dancing are linked in a perplexing way: The victims in Mexico and the thugs in Colorado were the same men.
Gun-wielding members of a Mexican drug cartel kidnapped Jonatan and Raymundo Maldonado-Salgado in 2011 and held them for ransom because they are the sons of Gumado Maldonado, then a wealthy Mexican horse trainer.
Five years later, the gun-toting Maldonado-Salgado brothers kidnapped the son of a wealthy dancing horses owner at a Lakewood porn shop and held him for five days while they haggled over his ransom.
The odd fate of the Maldonado-Salgado brothers has led to a lot of head scratching by a federal judge, defense attorneys and prosecutors. The fate-flip- ping phenomenon even left a University of Denver forensic psychologist at a loss.
“Is their decision to kidnap someone a product of them being kidnapped? Maybe,” said Kim Gorgens, a clinical forensic psychologist and graduate professor who has done extensive research on criminal behavior and victimization.
U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson mentioned the ironic fate of the Maldonado-Salgado brothers at sentencing hearings for Raymundo, 24, in September and his younger brother, Jonatan, 21, in January.
The brothers survived four days of beatings and terror, only to end up in U.S. District Court in Denver convicted of a nearly identical crime.
“They were undoubtedly traumatized by being kidnapped. And then they turn around and do the same to somebody else,” Jackson said during Jonatan’s sentencing. “Isn’t that a little bizarre?”
Admitting he was a bit baffled, Raymundo’s attorney William James O’Donnell III tried to explain how the machismo culture around dancing horses figured into both kidnappings.
“The cartels believe that if they own a dancing horse … it makes them more manly,” O’Donnell said. “For them it’s: ‘I have a dancing horse. I have a lot of money.’ “
After the cartel released the brothers, they fled with their parents and several younger siblings, leaving their ranch behind. The family applied for asylum in El Paso, and most were allowed to stay. But Raymundo, who was an adult, was sent back to Mexico after an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hearing.
At Raymundo’s sentencing, O’Donnell speculated that perceived mistreat- ment at the hands of ICE agents may have somehow led him to instigate a kidnapping five years later, after he re-entered the U.S. illegally.
In July 2016, the Maldonado-Salgado brothers met fugitive Marco CotaTamaura at bar in Denver. Cota-Tamaura was hard up for money because he owed $13,000 in child support, court documents say. Raymundo offered him $15,000 if he helped guard a kidnap victim for two days.
Raymundo explained that he trained dancing horses for the wealthy owner of a Commerce City ranch. They planned to kidnap the man’s son. They bought security uniforms at an Army Surplus store and outfitted themselves with ski masks, a hood, two burner cellphones, tactical equipment and guns.
On Aug. 30, 2016, the Maldonado-Salgado brothers and Cota-Tamaura followed the victim — identified in court documents as A.F. — to a porn store in Lakewood. Raymundo was the wheelman and strongarm. Cota-Tamaura had an AK-47. One of the brothers gave a Taurus 1911-style .45caliber automatic pistol with Santa Muerte — the grim reaper — printed on the pistol grip to a fourth conspirator, Hernando Aguilar-Banuelos, 32, who provided an apartment to hold the kidnap victim.
A.F. saw the masked men and cowered behind a female store clerk.
“Not too impressive, but that is what the victim did,” Jackson said during Jonatan’s sentencing. The three kidnappers trained their guns on the clerk, pulled out the store’s phone cables and wrestled the victim out of the store and into the truck.
Cota-Tamaura struck the victim with the butt of his AK-47. The assault rifle fired once, and the kidnappers argue that was accidental. They put a hood over A.F.’s head, took his keys and drove his car to the entrance of his family’s ranch, parking it there as proof that they had him.
Cota-Tamaura beat the victim while holding him for the next three days. The Maldonado-Salgado brothers negotiated with A.F.’s father. They warned the father that if he contacted police they would kill his entire family, court records say.
But he called the FBI anyway, and agents monitored the calls.
At one point, a $200,000 ransom — less than half the $500,000 the brothers originally demanded — was stashed in a black trash bag along Interstate 70 east of Denver, but the kidnappers couldn’t find it.
They called A.F.’s father, accused him of breaking the deal and threatened him a second time. The father agreed to leave the money at the entrance of his horse ranch. The FBI recorded the serial numbers of the $100 bills stuffed in the bag.
When the brothers collected the money, FBI agents recorded it on video.
During the course of the kidnapping and aftermath, the Maldonado-Salgado brothers left numerous criminal bread crumbs that led FBI agents to them. On Sept. 5, 2016, four FBI-coordinated SWAT teams hit the homes of the conspirators and made arrests.
Dressed in red-and-white striped jail clothes, Jonatan, through an interpreter, apologized profusely to the victim during his sentencing. He sobbed and vowed never to commit a crime again. He said he didn’t know why he kidnapped someone after suffering the harrowing experience of being kidnapped and tortured as a 15-year-old boy in Mexico. His only excuses were drug abuse and an allegiance to his brother.
Raymundo, too, blamed what he did on illicit drugs. Jonatan sought mercy because of his son who was born while he was in jail. Raymundo sought mercy because of a 5-year-old daughter.
Jackson sentenced Raymundo to 18 years in prison. He sentenced Jonatan to 12 years because he had testified against his brother and Cota-Tamaura at trial. A jury convicted Aguilar-Banuelos of kidnapping. His sentencing is scheduled for March 27.
DU professor Gorgens said a lot of research has been done about child victims of physical and sexual abuse becoming perpetrators themselves. But there’s no data on kidnap victims becoming kidnappers, she said.
She said victims of sexual or physical abuse can become desensitized to the trauma and there is some evidence that the Maldonado-Salgado brothers may have been affected the same way.
“It’s not unusual for victims to minimize their shocking abuse,” Gorgens said. “For (the MaldonadoSalgado brothers) to inflict the same torture on their victims as they suffered is pretty callous. That callousness is a lack of conscience.”
“Is their decision to kidnap someone a product of them being kidnapped? Maybe.” Kim Gorgens, clinical forensic psychologist