Crime and Courts

A Texas Woman is Accused of Offering a Migrant a Ride and Then Holding Her Baby for Ransom for Months

The FBI was alerted to the case on Sept. 26 when police in Florida contacted them about a woman who said she had been separated from her infant son since May and was being extorted for money

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A Honduran national who crossed the border into the U.S. told police that her baby was stolen and held for ransom after an El Paso, Texas, woman offered her a ride earlier this year, according to a federal criminal complaint.

The suspect, Jenna Leigh Roark, was arrested last month on charges of hostage taking and aiding and abetting. Attorney information was not listed for Roark in the court documents.

The FBI was alerted to the case on Sept. 26 when the St. Petersburg Police Department in Florida contacted them about a woman who said she had been separated from her infant son since May and was being extorted for money. At the time the woman made the complaint, she was living in Florida.

The woman, who is not named, told police that she crossed the border from Mexico and approached a man and woman in an El Paso apartment complex looking for directions to the bus station, the complaint states.

The woman said that Roark said her name was "Jane" and the pair offered her a ride to the station. During the drive, Roark told the woman that she would keep the woman's son and the two women exchanged phone numbers, it says.

It was not clear Tuesday what was said during the alleged exchange or why the woman agreed to leave her child with Roark. At some point later, the woman began demanding thousands of dollars in exchange for the woman's son.

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com

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