SEATTLE — A Tulalip man was sentenced late Tuesday to nine years in federal prison for the beating and kidnapping of a Canadian tribal member last year.
Prosecutors said the March 5 beating was the second time in less than a month that Elijah Pacheco, 32, attacked someone on the Tulalip Indian Reservation. Two other Tulalip tribal members also were involved in the attack on the 40-year-old Canadian woman.
Gilbert Moses, 42, and Melodie Ancheta, 39, were each sentenced in 2009 to three years in federal lockup.
According to police records, the three defendants were riding in the victim’s car when they became upset with the woman. They claimed she had called Ancheta a derogatory name. Moses was kicking the woman while Pacheco pulled her out of the car, according to court records. The men began beating the woman, kicking her in the head, face and abdomen.
The three stuffed the woman into the trunk of her car. One of them threatened to drive the car into the water. Ancheta drove the car to a friend’s house to get a change of clothing. She showed the friend the woman in the trunk. That person urged the trio to seek medical attention for the battered victim. Ancheta slammed the trunk shut and the three drove off.
The friend notified police, who found the car. The woman was rescued and taken to a hospital, where she was treated for severe head injuries, a broken vertebrae, cuts and bruises.
Prosecutors say just three weeks earlier, Pacheco and Ancheta beat another man after they had been socializing at a campfire on Marine Drive. They attacked the man and then took his wallet and car. He crawled to the side of the road to get help.
Federal prosecutors asked for a lengthy sentence for Pacheco.
“The community, particularly the Tulalip Tribes and the reservation, need protection from further acts of violence and other crimes that may be committed by the defendant,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Ye-Ting Woo wrote in court papers.
Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463; hefley@heraldnet.com.
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