Family kidnaps woman before wedding to force her to marry someone else, feds say

A woman’s plans to secretly wed her fiancé in Mexico were thwarted when her family found out and physically forced her back to the U.S. against her will, federal prosecutors said.

Upon returning to New York, her father took her phone, telling her “she would be traveling outside the United States whether she liked it or not” — to marry someone of his choosing in the Middle East — “or he would bury her in the backyard,” according to prosecutors.

The family told her they’d never let her marry her fiancé, who they threatened to kill, court documents show. Then they forced her to withdraw from the University of Buffalo, where she was a student, before they kidnapped her and took her to Yemen, according to an affidavit.

The woman is still being held in Yemen, prosecutors said.

“You are no longer in the West, you are in the Middle East, women like you are killed,” her father warned to her, according to officials.

The father, 50, and one of her brothers, 32, both of Lackawanna, New York, were arrested and are each facing a charge of conspiracy to kidnap persons in a foreign country, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York announced on Feb. 16.

McClatchy News isn’t naming the pair to protect the woman’s identity.

If convicted, both men face up to life in prison, according to prosecutors. They are accused of discussing killing the woman if she didn’t comply with their arranged marriage plans.

McClatchy News contacted an attorney representing the brother for comment and didn’t receive a response. Information for the father’s legal representation wasn’t available.

The woman tries marrying her fiancé

The case dates back to Sept. 1, 2021, when the woman traveled to Mexico to marry her fiancé, who she’s known for nearly nine years and who is a citizen of the country, without her family knowing, the affidavit says.

That day, her father called Lackawanna police to report her missing and said he learned she ran away to get married, according to the affidavit. Subsequently, police, with the help of Verizon, tracked her phone, showing she was in Guadalajara, investigators say.

The woman and her fiancé called her father the next day, saying she was safe and was in Mexico to marry her fiancé. The fiancé invited the father to travel to Mexico to participate in wedding plans, the affidavit says.

The family arrived in Mexico, where the father became furious about the marriage plans and said he wanted to immediately bring his daughter to Egypt or Yemen — demanding her fiancé’s family to pay him $30,000, according to the affidavit.

He threatened to throw his daughter from a hotel balcony on the 12th floor if she didn’t comply with him, saying “I will have no problem becoming a criminal in this country,” investigators say.

He warned he knew “hitmen” in Mexico “who can do the job for him” before booking flights for the family and the daughter to go back to the U.S., the affidavit says.

The evening before the flight, both families met at a restaurant where the woman’s father pretended to agree to allow his daughter and fiancé to marry, according to the affidavit. The fiancé presented her with an engagement ring and his family gave gifts, investigators say.

But afterward, when the woman’s family returned to their hotel, the father seized the engagement ring, threw away the gifts and they flew back to the U.S. the next day, the affidavit says.

Her mother later said that they “lied to just get her out of Mexico,” the affidavit shows.

The woman is forced to go to Yemen

Along with having her phone taken when the woman was back in New York, her laptop was seized and all passwords to her social media and email accounts were changed by her family, investigators say.

After unsuccessfully trying to escape her family’s home, she was “under constant threat of harm” from Sept. 10 through 20, the affidavit says.

If she didn’t agree to leave the country with them, she was told she’d be made a prisoner inside the home and her fiancé would be killed, prosecutors said.

When the fiancé called Lackawanna police to report he couldn’t contact the woman, authorities visited her home and advised reaching out to the fiancé, according to prosecutors.

This resulted in the woman getting tricked into leaving New York and going to Sanaa, Yemen, against her will with her family, officials said.

After arriving in Yemen, the father proposed an arranged marriage, for which he’d be paid $500,000, the affidavit says.

The woman refused, and he beat her with a belt and choked her, according to the affidavit.

Meanwhile, her fiancé didn’t stop calling Lackawanna police, prompting more welfare checks, prosecutors said. Authorities were told the woman was “fine” and to stop checking in on her.

While in Yemen, her father repeatedly threatened to kill her if she didn’t comply with him and warned “he could commit an honor killing against her without being held accountable by American authorities,” the affidavit says.

By April 2022, some of the woman’s family members returned to the U.S., leaving her behind in Yemen, where she unwillingly remains, according to prosecutors.

The FBI started investigating the case in December, prosecutors said.

McClatchy News contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office inquiring about whether efforts are being made to help the woman leave Yemen.

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