Federal officials said Tuesday that two brothers and another man are being charged with kidnapping after a strange plot that included trying to waterboard the victim to get them to help them lure the intended target.
A criminal complaint made in federal court says the suspects took the man hostage outside of his Plantation, Florida, apartment on October 13. They threw his phone out of the car window as they drove to a house. They then led him inside a house.
In the end, they found out they had the wrong person—they accidentally abducted the target’s co-worker.
Police said the kidnap victim claimed the abductors held a drill to his body and threatened to shoot him. They then doused him with water and performed the waterboarding. The victim said he thought he was going to die.
Police say the guys started thinking of ways the victim could help them get the coworker to come to them. According to the police, they gave him a cellphone and used his iCloud account to find the coworker’s phone number and call him.
The perpetrators drove the victim to the business in Pompano Beach, Florida, after discovering the man was still there. The plan was to get the kidnapping victim to get the coworker to come outside.
The victim instead called the police at 2:08 a.m. on Oct. 14 with a bomb threat to try to get them to the building quickly, the charge said.
Police caught the suspects and were still held in jail in Broward County, Florida, on Tuesday.
Jeffrey Arista, 32, and Jonathan Arista, 29, went to federal court in Miami for the first time on Monday. Raymond Gomez, 33, is the third suspect who has not yet appeared in court.
The three men involved in the plot face life in prison if convicted.
