Photo: Broward County Sheriff's Office
Authorities in Florida arrested three men accused of kidnapping and torturing a man who turned out to be the wrong target. Jeffry Arista, Jonathan Arista, and Raymond Gomez have been charged with kidnapping, conspiracy to kidnap, aggravated assault, and battery.
The Justice Department said that the three men abducted their victim from a parking garage outside his Fort Lauderdale home at gunpoint. The men were dressed as police officers and forced him into the back of a Dodge Charger, which was equipped with police-style lights.
They took him to an Airbnb they had rented in Plantation, Florida, where they tortured him for 12 hours. They threatened him with various weapons and even waterboarded him in a bathtub before they realized he was the wrong person.
When they located their actual target, who was a co-worker of the man they abducted, they drove him in a rented Porsche to a strip club where their target was located.
They told the man they had abducted to go inside and convince their actual target to come outside. Instead, he went inside, warned the target, and called in a bomb threat on the location, prompting a massive police response.
When officers arrived, they located Jeffry Arista and took him into custody. Jonathan Arista and Raymon Gomez tried to flee in the Porsche but crashed near the scene. Jonathan was taken into custody while Gomez managed to escape.
Investigators staked out the Airbnb and arrested Gomez the next day when he went back to clean up.
The three men claimed they were hired by somebody else because the target had unpaid debts.