Three Western New York residents who held a female letter carrier against her will for two hours because they mistakenly believed she had stolen a package containing cocaine have pled guilty to kidnapping. The kidnappers are Mark Rogers, 38, Joseph Way, aka Gus, 36, and Tashara Levans, 37, all of Rochester, New York. The incident occurred in November 2019 in the City of Rochester.
A kidnapping in broad daylight
According to the plea agreements and other court records, on the morning of November 16, 2019, Rogers and Way accosted a female letter carrier while she was delivering mail in the vicinity of Second Street and Central Park and accused her of stealing a package. Apparently she had delivered the package to Way earlier that morning.
The men ransacked the letter carrier’s mail truck and forced her into a white 2015 Infiniti SUV driven by Levans. They also searched her personal vehicle but did not find the missing package.
The kidnappers held the letter carrier for two hours while they drove around the city. Rogers and Way threatened to kill her and her children unless she either returned the package or paid them $70,000. At one point they called an associate and asked how much he would charge to kill her.
Rogers and Way FaceTimed a co-conspirator, pointed the phone at the letter carrier’s face and said “this is the bitch that stole our package, we’re gonna kill her”.
Towards the end of the ordeal, the carrier used her smart watch to send two text messages to a friend who was a police officer and to her supervisor. Rogers and Way told the carrier to write down the names of her children’s schools, and Way took a photo of her children from the wallpaper on her phone. They eventually put her in her car and she drove away.
The kidnappers were pulled over by a police officer moments later. Due to a misunderstanding, they were allowed to leave, but the white Infiniti SUV was seized from a residential parking lot later that day.
The defendants were arrested two and a half months later.
The kidnappers
According to prosecutors, Rogers and Way are both drug dealers, and both men were on parole for weapons possession at the time of the incident. Rogers was also on parole for criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree. Rogers and Levans lived together and had dated for six years.
The plea deals
The three defendants each entered into separate plea agreements on December 14, 2021. Under Rogers’ plea deal, the parties agreed to a sentence of 17 and a half years in prison. He is also subject to a fine of up to $250,000. Way’s plea deal calls for a sentence of 14 years in prison. He is also subject to a fine. Levans’ plea deal calls for a sentence of 8 to 14 months of home incarceration with no prison time due to her minimal involvement and clean criminal record.
All three defendants are scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Rochester in April 2022.
Rogers and Way both remain in custody.
Levans is free on bail subject to home incarceration and electronic monitoring.