Janette Ramirez, age 34, was sentenced on Jan. 15 to 42 months in prison and three years of supervised release after pleading guilty to interstate transmission of a ransom demand, according to U.S. Attorney David I. Courcelle.
The sentencing follows Ramirez’s involvement in a kidnapping case where she assisted her co-defendants, Hector Mondragon-Flores and Edwin Salgado-Nunez, in demanding ransom for the release of a victim. The court also imposed a $100 mandatory special assessment fee.
Court documents show that the victim was kidnapped by Mondragon-Flores and Salgado-Nunez, who bound the victim and held him at gunpoint while demanding $7,000 from the victim’s father. Salgado-Nunez was arrested during a ransom exchange after receiving $3,000 from the victim’s father. After this arrest, Mondragon-Flores took the victim to Ramirez’s apartment and instructed the victim to facilitate another payment from his girlfriend for his release. Ramirez translated conversations between the victim and his girlfriend into Spanish for Mondragon-Flores and used her CashApp account to request payments intended as ransom.
This case is part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), an initiative aimed at reducing violent crime through collaboration between law enforcement agencies and communities. The Department launched an updated violent crime reduction strategy on May 26, 2021, focusing on building trust within communities, supporting organizations that prevent violence, setting strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring outcomes.
The investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New Orleans Police Department. Assistant United States Attorneys David Berman and Sarah Dawkins are prosecuting the case.
