Woman pleads guilty to assault in connection with 2022 Brooklyn Park kidnapping, assault
Michell Gamino-Alvarado (Courtesy: Brooklyn Park Police Department)
A woman who played a role in the 2021 kidnapping and assault of a Lino Lakes man has pleaded guilty in Hennepin County court, according to court records.
The records show Michell Gamino Alvarado, 22, of Eagan, entered a guilty plea on Monday for her participation in the kidnapping and assault of a man in Brooklyn Park in December of 2021. Her jury trial was scheduled to begin that same day.
Alvarado pleaded guilty to first-degree assault aiding and abetting great bodily harm in exchange for a jail cap of 365 days with a stay of three years and no contact with the victim. A stay of imposition may be put into place at the time of sentencing.
5 EYEWITNESS NEWS previously reported that Alvarado was charged in January 2022, along with Jose Angel Chapa-Aguilera and Melanie Marcin-Sixtos.
On Dec. 21, 2021, Brooklyn Park police responded to a home on Ronald Place after a 911 caller reported that a man had knocked on his door covered in blood and asked for help, according to a criminal complaint. The victim had escaped a nearby house after allegedly being held captive since the previous day.
While held, the victim had been threatened with a gun, beaten with a metal pipe, burnt with hot knives, bound, and locked into a crawl space under the house, the complaint states.
When police searched the house, they found evidence of the assault, including a large black pole with electrical tape on the handle and significant amounts of blood, according to the complaint. They also found three pounds of methamphetamine as well as some cocaine in the house.
On Dec. 20, 2021, the victim picked up two women, one of whom was Alvarado, who said she’d been kicked out of her house, and drove them to the house on Ronald Place. The complaint states that the victim had loaned Alvarado money for rent and was aware that she was in debt from a drug deal. Despite hesitating, the victim joined the woman in entering the house and was confronted by the second woman’s boyfriend, Jose Angel Chapa-Aguilera.
Chapa-Aguilera accused the victim of being in a dispute with Alvarado, put a gun to the victim’s head and tied his arms behind his back, according to the complaint, while threatening that the victim would die. He allegedly proceeded to beat and torture the victim for multiple hours, and the women did not intervene or aid him. Later, Chapa-Aguilera “barricaded” the victim in the home’s crawlspace overnight.
The victim suffered multiple burns across his body, a large laceration above his right eye needing “extensive” stitches, an eye swollen shut and two broken ribs. The complaint details that he also needed a blood transfusion and spent multiple days in the hospital.
Alvarado was originally facing one count of first-degree assault, which carries a 20-year maximum sentence, and one count of kidnapping, which carries a 40-year maximum sentence.
Alvarado’s sentencing is set for July 18 at 10:30 a.m.