An MS-13 member who is in the country illegally has been accused of kidnapping a Tennessee high school student and beating him because he allegedly refused to join the violent gang.
Franklin Pineda-Caceres, an 18-year-old Honduran national, was arrested over the weekend after being involved in a car wreck in Nashville, according to reports Tuesday. Officers said they found a substantial amount of cocaine in his vehicle.
Tennessee federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged Pineda-Caceres with illegal reentry. He had been deported in May 2018 after being charged with drug crimes, authorities said. He had first entered the U.S. illegally in 2014.
Pineda-Caceres’ accuser was a student at Glencliff High School, Fox 17 Nashville reported.
Court documents say Pineda-Caceres pressured the student to join the notorious gang in January, according to the station.
When the student refused to become an MS-13 member, Pineda-Caceres and two other individuals forced him into a vehicle and then beat him, the station reported.
Police began investigating the case in April and tried to apprehend Pineda-Caceres in July.
He was able to get away then in a Chevrolet Camaro, driving through the front yard to avoid police vehicles and nearly striking his girlfriend, her mother, and his infant son, according to Fox 17.
He abandoned the vehicle after evading police.
*story by Fox News