Kidnapping charges have been dropped against two men accused of kidnapping a woman in South Tacoma and holding her in a trailer for about a week last year. Prosecutors alleged she was beaten and forced to smoke fentanyl, according to court documents.
Charges of assault, kidnapping and obstruction were dismissed against Ottahyo Caldwell on Feb. 7 because of a lack of victim cooperation, court records show. Records state prosecutors couldn’t prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt without her testimony.
The second man accused in the alleged kidnapping, Milo Tinifu, pleaded guilty March 2 in Pierce County Superior Court to a less serious charge, first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm. His other charges were dismissed, including two counts of first-degree kidnapping, second-degree assault, obstructing a law enforcement officer and attempting to elude a pursuing police vehicle.
Tinifu was sentenced to seven years, six months in prison on March 3. Judge Shelly Speir-Moss handed down the punishment, which was toward the low end of the standard sentencing range for defendants tried in similar cases. Tinifu has a long criminal history in Pierce County, including nine prior felony convictions, according to court records. Those include offenses such as robbery, assault and theft.
In interviews with Tacoma Police Department officers, Caldwell allegedly denied kidnapping the woman and said she’d been voluntarily “hanging out” with him and Tinifu. He denied the allegation that her wrists had been bound, but he allegedly said he’d seen Tinifu with a firearm and oxycodone or fentanyl pills. The other man physically assaulted her numerous times, he added.
“Caldwell said [the victim] was going to ‘rip tricks,’ by setting up prostitution dates and then having Tinifu rob the males for their money,” according to the probable cause document.
Tacoma police began investigating the crime April 27, 2022, when officers were called to a cannabis shop on South 38th Street for a report of a kidnapping. An 18-year-old woman, who said she ran to the business for help after escaping, told officers she’d been held captive for five to seven days in a trailer. She told officers she’d been held by two men, one of whom was her ex-boyfriend, Caldwell.
Officers found fresh dried blood on her sweatshirt and knees and red marks on her wrists that the woman said were from her hands being bound. In interviews with police, the woman reported that she was punched and kicked in the head during her captivity, at one point losing consciousness due to the beatings.
The woman told officers she barely slept and hadn’t eaten or drunk anything in several days, records state, and she allegedly said the men forced her to smoke as many as 15 fentanyl pills from foil to “stay doped up.”
Records state she also said Tinifu threatened her with a firearm and told her if she didn’t do what he said, he’d kill her and her whole family.
Police located and arrested Caldwell and Tinifu the day after the woman escaped. Officers took them into custody following a police pursuit that led authorities through a residential area and ended near the 6400 block of Tacoma Mall Boulevard.