Two Fresno women are headed to prison for kidnapping a mother and her child while also withholding her infant.
U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston sentenced Rosa Ventura, 36, to 20 years in prison and Claudia Gonzales, 39, to 17 years in prison for the offenses.
Driving the news: The victim was a young mother of a nine-year-old daughter who was living in Mexico. She met Ventura’s brother and later became pregnant with his child. Ventura arranged for her and her daughter to come to the U.S. before she gave birth, despite the fact that the mother lacked the legal status to do so.
The mother gave birth to a second daughter after settling in Fresno. On May 8, 2024, she reported her boyfriend to the police for domestic violence, leading to his arrest, which angered Ventura.
One day later, Ventura told the mother that she needed help raising money for her brother, getting the mother to leave her five-month-old baby with a relative while they drove with the older daughter to her home. Ventura contacted Gonzales to help carry out her plan. Gonzales then hid in the trunk of Ventura’s car.
Ventura drove the mother and the older daughter to an open field, where Gonzales emerged from the trunk and moved to the front. As they drove south, Ventura threatened the mother and warned her that she might never see her baby again. In the early morning, the mother and her daughter attempted to flee at a gas station, but Gonzales used a taser on the mother, forcibly restrained them, took their phones and drove across the border to Tijuana.
Ventura abandoned the brother and her daughter at a bus stop in Tijuana around 4 a.m. and told the mother that the status of the baby depended on what happened in the brother’s case.
The mother spent the next seven months in Mexico before being brought back to the U.S. in December 2024 by U.S. law enforcement to be reunited with her baby. Law enforcement also arrested Ventura and Gonzales for kidnapping.
Flashback: A federal grand jury charged Ventura and Gonzales with three kidnapping counts, including conspiracy to kidnap a minor, in January 2025.
Both Ventura and Gonzales pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnapping involving a minor in February of this year.