8/3/2021- 9:08 a.m.
A Webster woman on Monday was convicted and sentenced to 45 years for her involvement in a 2018 kidnapping meant to extract tens of thousands of dollars but which ended with an FBI agent inadvertently shooting dead the Conroe dad who had been abducted.
Following a four-day trial in Montgomery County’s 9th District Court and streamed via Zoom, jurors deliberated for less than an hour in the morning and found Delia Gualdina Velasquez, 50, guilty in the first-degree felony offense of aggravated kidnapping Ulises Valladares, 47, whom she called a cousin. After around an hour and a half of deliberation, jurors handed Velasquez her sentence late in the afternoon.
She will have to serve half of her sentence before being eligible for parole, the court explained.
The jury “did what they could to right a wrong for this aggrieved family,” Montgomery County District Attorney Brett Ligon said in a statement shortly after the sentencing.
The prosecution, led by Montgomery County Felony Crimes Chief Donna Hansen and including Assistant District Attorney Brittney Aaron, pointed to a 2005 truck sale gone sour between Velasquez and the victim’s brother as having served as an impetus to the scheme.
Velasquez encouraged, directed, solicited and aided kidnappers, the prosecution asserted during opening arguments. Testimony against the mother and taqueria dishwasher included a jail inmate and a co-conspirator of Velasquez. During the punishment phase of the trial, the prosecution said Velasquez acted “in the name of revenge and greed.”
Velasquez was represented by Houston attorney Cruz Cervantes. The defense signaled to her willingness to talk to investigators and her having not fled despite an opportunity to do so.
Velasquez’s “selfishness is beyond offensive — it’s inexcusable, unacceptable, and intolerable, and the lengthy prison sentence delivered by the jury was absolutely appropriate,” Hansen said in a statement Monday evening. “We hope that the sentence will bring some measure of peace to the grieving members of the family members so needlessly wronged.”
The defendant’s husband, Nicholas Chase Cunningham, 46, also of Webster, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery in August 2019 and received a life sentence. Sofia Perez Heath, 38, of Houston, pleaded guilty to kidnapping in January 2020 and received 20 years in prison.
Jimmy Tony Sanchez, 42, of Conroe, was a witness for the prosecution and is expected to plead guilty in the case, where he is charged with aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery, according to First Assistant District Attorney Mike Holley.
Cunningham, Heath and Sanchez were charged in January 2018. Velasquez was charged in July 2019 upon new evidence in the case, cited as cell phone data by the District Attorney’s Office.
The case has also led to a civil rights suit and Harris County officials continuing to investigate the federal agent who shot Valladares.
Witnesses and accomplices
Falsely claiming they were part of the Gulf Cartel, a Mexican crime syndicate, Cunningham and Sanchez demanded $20,000 they said Ulises Valladares’ brother, Erasmo Valladares, owed them, threatening to kill the abductee and other family if they did not receive the money, testimony from witnesses and law enforcement laid out.
Ulises Valladares’ 15-year-old son testified about how two men, later identified as Cunningham and Sanchez, burst into their brick house just south of East Davis in Conroe as he ate breakfast the morning of Jan. 24, 2018. The assailants bound the then weeping 12-year-old, taking his father.
Forensic investigators testified Cunningham communicated with Delia Velasquez via cell phone text during the abduction and that she phoned him after talking to Ernesto Valladares. She also texted warnings about the surrounding areas during the kidnapping, investigators testified.
Sanchez, who was a prison gang associate of Cunningham’s, detailed the plan to kidnap Valladares. He pointed to Velasquez as orchestrating the ransom plot, showing the two men the home where the Valladares brothers lived and filling them in on the siblings’ work schedules.
Meanwhile, Cunningham testified he and the other two previously convicted in the crime acted independent of Velasquez, insisting his wife was innocent. Appearing remorseless on the witness stand, he said his actions were taken to correct the supposed swindle he believed was perpetrated on her by the victim’s brother.
Held at the Montgomery County Jail on an aggravated robbery charge, Cleveland resident Claudia Rojas became acquainted with Velasquez at the Conroe facility. In her testimony, she said the defendant asked her to deliver a letter to a former husband requesting alibis.
Velasquez took the stand in her defense on Friday, a day shy of two years to the date since she was charged and jailed in the case.
“She lied before God,” Velasquez said through a Spanish-to-English translator about Rojas’ testimony.
Nonetheless, jurors believed Rojas’ and Sanchez’s words over hers and turned in a verdict in what appeared to be less time than what closing arguments from both sides took.
Unanswered questions
As an FBI force tried freeing Ulises Valladares from a Trinity Gardens home where he was being held on the morning after his abduction, an agent fatally shot him.
The agent was using his M-4 rifle to break a window at the back of the house and a bound and gagged Valladares grabbed the gun, authorities would later explain. The agent killed Valladares with two shots when he thought the kidnapper was attempting to wrest the gun from him.
A lawsuit was filed by Valladares’ relatives against the FBI agent who shot Valladares and against his kidnappers.
The verdict on Velasquez might “get this situation, this tragic event much closer to an end,” said Randall Kallinen, the suit’s attorney, on Monday night.
It remains unclear whether the FBI took any internal actions against the agent — an FBI spokeswoman previously declined to comment, citing the bureau does not address personnel matters.
In May 2019, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas opted against charging the federal agent who shot Valladares. Officials revealed that information upon inquiries from the Houston Chronicle in September 2019.
“As soon as grand juries are back in full swing, we’ll be able to confirm whether we have all the evidence so that grand jurors can make an informed decision as to whether any charges are warranted,” said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg in late December 2020.
The agent’s identity has never been publicly revealed, but his name was disclosed to lawyers involved in the civil case. Attorneys have been barred by a federal judge from sharing that information with members of the media.
“We’ve been waiting for the FBI to to speak to the family, to recognize they messed up,” said Valladares’ sister, Consuelo Valladares, in a January 2020 phone interview with the Houston Chronicle. “They haven’t acknowledged that they committed a failure, they haven’t been humble or professional with us, they’ve never even contacted us or apologized, not even once.”
In late December, Valladares’ mother, Justina Garcia, flew from Tegucigalpa, Honduras to Houston and spoke at a press conference decrying the FBI’s unresponsiveness.
“I want them to talk to me personally and explain it to me, so I can understand the situation,” Garcia said about the FBI and her son’s fatal shooting.
Monday afternoon in the trial’s punishment’s phase, Ernesto Valladares testified his and Ulises’ mother has suffered depression since her son’s death, crying a lot and not eating or sleeping regularly.
A daughter of Velasquez from a previous relationship spoke in tearful testimony about how her mother was loving and supportive and a hard worker who found herself in relationships with abusive or controlling men like Cunningham.
Jurors gave Velasquez five years less than the 50 to life sentence prosecutors were asking of them.
Before deliberations, Valladares’ son spoke on how he was orphaned after his dad’s death since his mother was also deceased.
When asked by the prosecution what words he would say to Ulises Valladares if he were living now, the boy said he would tell his father, “I love him.”
