EVERETT — An ex-con from Everett was convicted Wednesday of a kidnapping that set off an Amber Alert while authorities searched for two small children whose mother watched helplessly as they were driven away in a stolen van.

Timothy Sean Martin, 39, is scheduled to be sentenced Monday by Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Richard Thorpe.

He faces between 21 and 28 years in prison, deputy prosecutor Helene Blume said.

A jury of nine men and three women deliberated more than four hours Wednesday afternoon before convicting Martin of three first-degree kidnapping counts and one count of second-degree robbery in the Oct. 18, 2006, abduction in Marysville.

The verdict came after a trial that lasted more than a week.

Martin maintained authorities had the wrong man, even though his DNA was found on the steering wheel of the van. The vehicle was recovered with the children inside and safe more than eight hours after it was stolen.

A 23-year-old Marysville mother had been to a church Bible study and potluck that evening when she stopped at a pharmacy on Smokey Point Boulevard. When she returned to the van and started buckling a 2-year-old boy and 4-year-old girl into their seats, a man came up behind her and grabbed both her arms.

The man told her to cooperate “or he would cut her babies,” Blume told the jury Wednesday morning.

The mother drove for an estimated nine minutes until the assailant told her to pull over so he could get behind the wheel. She pulled into a driveway of a residence and made her escape as she started to change places with the man.

She yelled for help and two people came out of the house and called 911. That’s when the man drove away with the two children still in the back seat.

Watching helplessly as Martin drove off with the children was “a parent’s worst nightmare,” Blume told jurors. “I suggest to you that nine minutes were the longest minutes she ever lived, except from the eight hours the children were missing,” Blume told jurors.

Besides DNA found on the steering wheel of the van, the defendant’s keys were found on the floor of the van. Some of his clothes and his identification were discovered a short distance away.

Martin testified that he was at the Marysville library miles from the robbery scene when the kidnapping happened. Everett defense attorney Mickey Krom said it would have been impossible for Martin, who had no car, to get to the pharmacy at the time the woman and children were abducted.

Krom argued that there are many reasons to doubt that it was Martin who drove the kids away.

“Timothy Martin is not the man responsible for that crime,” Krom said. “We’re not here to suggest it was not a bad thing that a person did, but that person was not Timothy Martin.”

Martin admitted being in the van but only after it was abandoned. His only purpose was to steal the victim’s purse, Krom said.

His past convictions include robbery and burglary. Martin might have been down and out and coming off a drug high at the time, but that’s not a reason to convict an innocent man, Krom told jurors.

Blume said Martin should not be believed. She compared the credibility of his testimony with the tabloids found at the checkout stands in grocery stores. Some of them depict creatures from outer space landing on the White House lawn, Blume said.

She told the jury: “I suggest to you the defendant’s testimony here is somewhat like an alien meeting with the president.”

Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or jhaley@heraldnet.com.