8 sentenced in nabbing of assistant district attorney’s dad

RALEIGH, N.C. – Eight people will spend decades in prison in connection with the botched kidnapping of a North Carolina prosecutor that ended with her father’s abduction.

The eight men and women from Georgia were sentenced on Monday to between 20 and 52 years in federal prison.

They were convicted of roles in a vengeance plot ordered by United Blood Nation gang leader Kelvin Melton in 2014. The plan was to kidnap Wake County Assistant District Attorney Colleen Janssen, who had put the habitual felon in prison for life.

The criminals goofed and kidnapped Janssen’s father instead. He was rescued when agents stormed the gang’s Atlanta hideout.

Melton was sentenced to life in a federal super-max prison.

Two others involved in the plot are due to be sentenced within weeks.

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