Utah Lyft driver charged with kidnapping teen girl
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Pat Reavy, KSL
WEST JORDAN, Utah (KSL) — A rideshare driver was charged Wednesday with kidnapping a teenage girl who police say was forced to jump from his moving vehicle to escape.
Victor Manuel Montilla, 44, of South Jordan, is charged in 3rd District Court with kidnapping, a second-degree felony.
A woman arranged for a Lyft driver to pick up her 15-year-old daughter on Feb. 7 and take her from West Jordan to an appointment in Salt Lake City. Montilla picked up the teen but turned the wrong way out of the complex and pulled over, “stating he was having connection issues,” according to a police booking affidavit.
“Montilla told (the teen) that he had fixed the directions, and she observed him put his phone in a holder on the dashboard. (She) said that instead of turning left to head toward Glendale, he turned right and headed toward South Jordan,” charging documents state.
Police say Montilla then canceled the Lyft ride on his phone, but “told the victim that her mother had canceled the ride and began driving in the opposite direction of the ride destination.”
The mother was monitoring the rideshare’s movement and called her daughter when she noticed the vehicle had stopped. When she saw that Montilla had canceled the ride, the mother “instructed (her daughter) to exit the car immediately,” according to charging documents.
“The victim told Victor to stop the vehicle both in English and in Spanish, in which he did not respond to and continued to drive. The victim told Victor to stop several times and when he did not respond, the victim opened the vehicle door and jumped out of the moving vehicle,” according to the affidavit.
When police talked to the girl, “she described feeling scared and hot, with thoughts of kidnapping going through her mind. The victim stated, ‘I felt like he was going to take me and do the worst.’ When the driver did not comply with her requests to stop, she explained she had to take her chance and run,” the affidavit says.
Montilla “admitted to canceling the Lyft ride with the juvenile still in the vehicle,” but said he was just looking for a spot to pull over, according to the affidavit. Police say he passed several side streets during that time in which he could have pulled over “and could not answer why he continued to drive so far from the apartments looking for a safe place to pull over.”
Investigators say the teen jumped out of Montilla’s vehicle about three minutes and less than a mile after being picked up.