{"id":909850,"date":"2026-07-03T13:11:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/909850\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T13:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T13:11:15","slug":"san-antonio-woman-sentenced-to-40-years-in-federal-prison-after-taking-immigrant-hostage-doj-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/909850\/","title":{"rendered":"San Antonio woman sentenced to 40 years in federal prison after taking immigrant hostage, DOJ says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\"><strong>DEL RIO, Texas<\/strong> \u2013 A San Antonio woman was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison Thursday after taking an immigrant hostage in exchange for a $6,000 ransom, according to a Department of Justice. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Jailene Reyes, 28, pleaded guilty on one count of conspiracy to commit hostage taking back in January, the department said. Reyes was sentenced inside a federal courtroom in Del Rio. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">According to DOJ officials, Reyes called the victim\u2019s fianc\u00e9 on Aug. 4, 2024, and told him that if he did not pay a $6,000 ransom, his fianc\u00e9 \u201cwould be sold to other people.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">The phone call was traced from the man\u2019s phone back to Reyes by the San Marcos Police Department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Reyes and the man later arranged a meetup. After the meeting, the DOJ said Texas Department of Public Safety troopers conducted a traffic stop on Reyes, arrested her and rescued the hostage. A stolen handgun was also found inside Reyes\u2019 vehicle, the DOJ said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">Reyes told investigators that the hostage was transported to her from Eagle Pass. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\">On May 28, 2025, the DOJ filed five charges against Reyes, including the conspiracy to commit hostage taking count she pleaded guilty to earlier this year. Reyes was arrested nine days later. <\/p>\n<p class=\"Box-_wrDxHtU__Box-sc-10sa3ie-0 Text-nO2aZ44r__TextBase-sc-s2hv5x-0 jJNfBD fSvavs article-text\"><b>More recent crime coverage on KSAT: <\/b><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KSAT &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DEL RIO, Texas \u2013 A San Antonio woman was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison Thursday after&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":891349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,4219,368009,58379,409,7202,48789,368010,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-909850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-america","tag-crime","tag-del-rio","tag-doj","tag-immigration","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-marcos","tag-san-marcos-police-department","tag-sanantonio","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116856218290837974","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}