DETROIT, Michigan — Four people have pleaded guilty in federal court to a kidnapping conspiracy that prosecutors say targeted their own family member after he went viral on social media and was given more than $100,000, a new car and other gifts, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Michigan announced on November 4. Roland Chatmon, 37, of Detroit; Leica Lopez Martinez, 33, of Lake Orion; Ieasha Stroman, 38, of Pontiac; and Dneiqua Stroman, 43, of Pontiac, all pleaded guilty to kidnapping conspiracy and federal firearms offences, U.S. Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. said. A fifth defendant, Kenneth Anderson, 54, of Pontiac, previously pleaded guilty to money laundering for his role and has already been sentenced to probation and ordered to pay restitution.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Eastern District of Michigan

What prosecutors say happened on September 1, 2025

According to court filings and the defendants' own admissions during their plea hearings, one conspirator lured the victim by pretending to need a ride. While the victim drove, Chatmon gave directions by cell phone. After the victim parked, Chatmon and the remaining conspirators carjacked him at gunpoint, hog-tied him and kept him hostage in his own truck, the Justice Department said.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

The group then drove the victim around trying to get money out of his bank accounts, repeatedly pistol-whipping and beating him along the way, prosecutors said. After they succeeded in making cash withdrawals, they wanted more money, and the victim offered up a safe at his house containing cash. The conspirators drove to the victim's house with him still tied up in his truck, and Chatmon and Dneiqua Stroman broke into the house and stole the safe, according to the plea admissions.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

Inside the house, they also tied up Chatmon's aunt and left her in a bathtub, prosecutors said. The group then left the victim on the ground next to his truck and set the truck on fire before fleeing. Later, they met up with Anderson, who helped them move money from the victim's Cash App account into their own accounts — the conduct behind Anderson's money-laundering plea, the Justice Department said.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

How the plot began: a viral act of kindness

The conspiracy began in August 2025, after Chatmon's uncle had gone viral on social media after offering to help someone in need, prosecutors said. To reward him for his good deed, a social media influencer raised money for the uncle and gave him over $100,000, a new car and other gifts, all of which were highly publicised. On August 24, 2025, Chatmon talked to his brother, who was in jail, and told him about the uncle. On a recorded jail call, Chatmon and his brother hatched a plan to take the money from the uncle — and laughed about it, according to court filings. The plan went on to include several other conspirators.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

Earlier reporting on the charges identified the victim as Curtis Dixon, a 60-year-old Detroit man who had been preparing to pawn his wedding ring to pay a past-due electric bill when he helped a man who was pretending to be blind outside a Detroit pawn shop. The man was influencer Zachery Dereniowski, known online as MD Motivator, and the encounter led to a crowdfunding campaign that raised the money Dixon was later targeted over, according to that reporting, which cited Fox 2 Detroit. The Justice Department's November 4 announcement does not name the victim, referring to him as Chatmon's uncle.

Source: Face2Face Africa / Fox 2 Detroit reporting

The investigation and the arrests

The case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the U.S. Attorney's Office led the prosecution side of the investigation, the Justice Department said. On September 25, 2025, the ATF executed search warrants at five residences in Detroit, Rochester Hills and Pontiac and arrested all the suspects. The federal criminal complaint in the case, filed in the Eastern District of Michigan on September 25, 2025, charged the group under 18 U.S.C. section 1201(c), the federal law against conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and set out the allegation that the defendants conspired to seize and hold the victims to obtain cash, money from the victim's bank accounts and other personal property.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice / federal criminal complaint, Case 2:25-mj-30612

James Deir, Special Agent in Charge of the ATF's Detroit Field Division, joined U.S. Attorney Gorgon in the November 4 announcement. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew R. Picek and Diane N. Princ, the Justice Department said.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

The pleas, the penalties and the sentencing dates

With their guilty pleas, Chatmon, Lopez Martinez, Ieasha Stroman and Dneiqua Stroman each face a mandatory minimum sentence of seven years in federal prison and a maximum possible sentence of life imprisonment, the Justice Department said. Anderson's case is already closed out: he was previously sentenced to probation and ordered to pay restitution after his money-laundering plea. A guilty plea is a conviction — the four remaining defendants now move directly to sentencing, with no trial.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

Why this case drew national attention

The case has been followed far beyond metro Detroit because of how it began: a man whose kindness to a stranger was rewarded, very publicly, with life-changing money — and who, prosecutors say, was then hunted for that money by members of his own extended family. The recorded jail call at the centre of the plot, the safe stolen from the victim's own home, and his aunt being tied up and left in a bathtub are the details prosecutors laid out in court filings and that the defendants have now admitted through their pleas. For readers in Michigan's Punjabi and wider immigrant communities in the Detroit, Pontiac and Oakland County area, the case is also a cautionary story about how quickly a publicised windfall — a viral video, a crowdfunding total, a new car — can make a family a target, and why police advise keeping large gifts and cash movements private.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice / court filings

What happens next

The four defendants who pleaded guilty to the kidnapping conspiracy will be sentenced in February and March 2027, when a federal judge will decide where in the seven-years-to-life range each sentence falls, based on the plea admissions, each defendant's role and the federal sentencing guidelines. The Justice Department has not announced any additional defendants, and the November 4 announcement lists the ATF as the investigating agency and the two assistant U.S. attorneys prosecuting the case. Anderson, the fifth defendant, has already completed the court process with probation and restitution. Awaaz Punjab will report the sentences when they are imposed in 2027.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice