Two men have been convicted by a federal jury on multiple charges for hijacking a semi truck and kidnapping a trucker at gunpoint earlier this year.
Last week, New York residents Stephen Pierre-Paul, 30, and Wayne Ricardo Taylor, 26, were convicted on charges of carjacking, armed robbery and possession of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Virginia.
The charges were issued following an incident that occurred shortly after 3 a.m. on April 1, 2021, in Mount Jackson, Virginia.
Authorities say that Pierre-Paul, Taylor, and co-conspirators travelled to a truck stop in Mount Jackson in a van with blacked out windows.
Once at the truck stop, the group hijacked a semi truck with Alabama tags and abducted the truck driver at gunpoint, forcing him into the van.
Both the van and the semi truck were stopped at a police roadblock on I-66 east at 5:15 a.m. in Fairfax County.
The truck driver was rescued and the members of the group were arrested.
Brooklyn co-defendants Cornelius Crossman, 37, and Odane Butler, 27, face sentencing on December 10 and January 21, 2022, respectively.
Authorities say that Pierre-Paul and Taylor both face a mandatory minimum sentence of 7 years and maximum of life in prison when sentenced on March 11, 2022.