A Utah man is accused of holding his pregnant girlfriend and her family hostage in their home for six months under the lie that “cartel” members were pursuing them.
Dominic Garcia, 23, was arrested Saturday and booked on 28 charges, most of them felonies. Among them were seven each of kidnapping and assault, according to The Associated Press.
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The situation reportedly began when one of the alleged captives called the police, claiming they were being held against their will and that they “weren’t able to take it any longer,” according to KSTU, a Salt Lake City-based FOX affiliate.
Upon arriving at the home, police found the family holding Garcia at gunpoint, and he was promptly taken into custody.
Garcia reportedly moved in with the family in December. Shortly afterward, he allegedly claimed his own family had ties to a cartel, and that his new housemates had to do as he told them to remain in the cartel’s good graces.
“Over time, Garcia created an atmosphere of fear and control, falsely creating affiliations with a dangerous cartel,” said Sgt. Aymee Race of the Unified Police Department of Greater Salt Lake.
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“He claimed ‘his people’ were watching and any defiance could result in their deaths,” she continued.
Garcia reportedly began carrying a handgun around the house, repeatedly telling family members that the cartel would kill them if they did not do as he told them.
Garcia is also accused of forcing his alleged victims out of the home for a month under the pretense that his family had made a bad deal with the cartel and needed to flee.
Upon their return, a family member texted a friend to explain where they had gone, KSTU reports. Upon seeing the text, Garcia allegedly lashed out, later claiming he’d brought one of the hostages “into the company” and that he’d kill them if they went astray.
Family members also accuse Garcia of checking their phones and confronting them over messages he didn’t approve of and limiting who could leave the home and for how long. He is also said to have run a “boot camp”-like operation that entailed working out five times a day, taking ice baths and facial submersion to the point where family members were left unable to breathe.
Garcia, who as of Monday was being held without bail, “said that he continued this lie for several months because he did not know how to stop it in fear that they would not like him,” the police affidavit reads.
Sgt. Race declined to provide any additional comment on the case when reached by Fox News Digital.
The Associated Press and KSTU contributed to this report.
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