Woman accused of faking kidnapping, blow-torching son

A Miami woman is accused of staging her own kidnapping outside a Wal Mart, abducting her teenage son and standing by as her accomplice held a blow torch to the boy's leg to convince his father their ransom demand was serious, the Miami Herald reports.

 Alejandra Arriaza, 39, of Miami, faces a federal kidnapping charge along with her boyfriend, Angel Ponce, 37, and his nephew, Joel Boza, 29.

A criminal complaint says Arriaza hatched the scheme to get money from her ex-husband. She took her
17-year-old son to a South Florida Wal-Mart Thursday to buy an iPhone and left the door to her white Honda Civic unlocked, allowing a masked Ponce to slip into the back seat with a fake handgun and thick tape. After Arriaza and her son returned to the car, Ponce sat up, announced the kidnapping and covered the teenager's eyes with the tape.

He ordered Arriaza to drive to Ponce's trailer in the 1600 block of Southwest 127th Court in Miami, where the boy was tied to a chair with shrink wrap and tape. ''His head was wrapped in thick tape from the top of his head down to the tip of his nose,'' the complaint states.

The bound child was then placed inside a closet overnight. At one point a blow torch was placed close enough to the phone so the father could hear it. Finally, Boza placed the lit blow torch near the boy's leg, just close enough to burn the hair off.

Finally, on Friday evening, investigators tracked the location of the trailer and rescued the boy and, presumably, his mother.

Ponce was arrested first and quickly revealed that Arriaza was in on the whole abduction, but the son was not. Arriaza later corroborated his account, according to the complaint.

Comments

[mc]

should have paid his child support.

[family friend]

he did pay child support. she just wanted money from a business the father had recently sold

[Peri]

I don't think we can assume dad was a deadbeat. But even if he were, there is absolutely no excuse for what this monster did to her own child. This kid will probably be traumatized for life because of this - the sheer terror he was put through, and then finding out it was done at his own mother's behest. What a horrible, horrible beast. I wish I could take a blow torch to HER worthless rear end.

[Bob]

Deport them all!!!

[DaddyNoBucks]

How pathetic! Sadly, children are used as pawns for money in this country. Another example of the short-sighted greed that fuels our society.

[RW]

He is innocent, she is a monster. She should be put with all the other mothers who killed their children for selfish reasons. She played off the love a father has for his son in order to commit a federal crime.
She is evil.

[Capital Dan]

That's going to make Christmas very awkward.

[Harkness]

Welcome to America!

[Denis Baldwin]

What a monster. I'm hoping when she goes to prison that someone shows her real torture. It's disgusting what someone would do to their own child.

[MRainier]

Wow and what's crazy is she was deemed better suited to raise the child.

[PrincessHaven]

We Americans wouldn't have to put up with this S Hit if we could send illegals back to their home country! Can you say Chonga?

[Mark In NYC]

There was no mention in this story of anyone being an illegal immigrant. Bob and PrincessHaven sound like bigots.