Three men who were arrested in November after one of their kidnap victims text-messaged an SOS have been sentenced to prison.
In Pima County Superior Court on Tuesday, Judge Edgar Acuña sentenced Adrian Quinonez, 18, and Hector Estrada-Lazalde, 18, to one year in prison after both entered plea agreements with the Pima County Attorney's Office.
Last week, Acuña sentenced Samuel Moreno Sanchez, 40, to nine months in prison after he, too, made a deal with prosecutors.
Court documents gave this account of the incident: A man was at home at 11:30 a.m. on Nov. 22 when some acquaintances with guns forced him to accompany them to a house in the 500 block of North Firestar Drive, near Greasewood Park on the West Side.
Once there, he and another man were interrogated about the disappearance of 1,200 pounds of marijuana from another house.
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The victim said Quinonez tied both him and the other man up and fired a rifle into the floor.
After the shots were fired, the man said his abductors untied him and the other man for fear that police would show up.
The next day, the man said, he offered to wash dishes, and after he was untied, he found a cell phone and was able to text-message a friend saying he was about to be killed.
He also text-messaged the home's address after finding a bill inside.
When police arrived at the home and knocked on the front door, the man answered the door and said nobody was home. He then mouthed to officers that he was the one who had sent the text message, Tucson police Sgt. Decio Hopffer told reporters at the time.
Quinonez, Estrada-Lazalde and Sanchez were arrested, along with Demis Ulises Mokay Fong, 23.
All four were indicted on two counts each of kidnapping and one count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The charges against Fong were dismissed without prejudice in May.
Quinonez pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, while Sanchez and Estrada-Lazalde both pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment.
According to court testimony and court documents, Quinonez, Sanchez and Estrada-Lazalde all said they had just been smuggled into the U.S. and were simply waiting at the North Firestar Drive address for rides elsewhere.
The men said there were a dozen other people in the home, and Quinonez accidentally fired the rifle while admiring it and some other guns in the home.
Sanchez told probation officers he knew one of the victims was being blamed for stealing marijuana, but he had nothing to do with that.
When sentencing Quinonez and Estrada-Lazalde, Acuña said he found their stories "incredulous" and they were lucky they were given such plea agreements.
Deputy Pima County Attorney Dan Nicolini, who handled the case, could not be reached for comment after the sentencing hearings Tuesday.
