RALEIGH, N.C. – A federal jury in North Carolina has convicted a prisoner of directing a botched kidnapping attempt from his prison cell, in an incident where the kidnappers mistakenly grabbed the father of a prosecutor.
A release from the U.S. Department of Justice said 51-year-old Kelvin Melton was found guilty Tuesday of multiple charges, including kidnapping and aiding and abetting and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.
Prosecutors said Melton's underlings were sent to grab Wake County Assistant District Attorney Colleen Janssen, who put him in prison in a 2011 shooting case, but mistakenly kidnapped her father instead.
Prosecutors said they wiretapped a cellphone smuggled into Melton's prison cell and caught him giving instructions on how Frank Janssen should be killed and how to dispose of the body and clean up the crime scene.
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