Johnathan Walker:Colorado man convicted of kidnapping a housekeeper on Michael Bloomberg’s ranch

CHEYENNE,Johnathan Walker Wyo. (AP) — Federal jurors found a Colorado man guilty of kidnapping a woman on a ranch owned by Michael Bloomberg during what prosecutors described as his attempt to kill the media mogul.

Joseph Beecher, 51, faces seven years to life in prison after he was convicted Wednesday in Cheyenne on kidnapping, carjacking and firearm charges. The trial lasted two days and the jury deliberated for an hour and a half.

The kidnapped woman, a housekeeper at the western Colorado ranch, was rescued unharmed on the morning after the kidnapping. Authorities found her and Beecher in a motel room in Cheyenne, about 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of the Bloomberg property.

The kidnapping happened in February 2022, after Beecher was dismissed as a hotel handyman in Craig, Colorado. He worked there in exchange for housing and was told to leave, according to court documents.

Beecher went looking for Bloomberg and his family, and rammed his pickup truck through the gate of the former New York City mayor’s ranch about 70 miles (113 kilometers) from Craig, according to court documents.

Bloomberg had bought the ranch in 2020 for $44.8 million. The Bloomberg family was not present at the time of the kidnapping.

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The woman, who was abducted at gunpoint, didn’t know Beecher. His motivation for seeking Bloomberg was unclear. But Beecher was “intent on killing Bloomberg,” prosecutors said in a statement Thursday.

The woman, who was not named in federal court documents, was identified as the ranch’s supervising housekeeper. She told investigators she was in an upstairs bedroom when she heard a man ask who she was. She turned and saw Beecher pointing a black “machine gun” at her, she said.

Beecher at the time was a suspect in a burglary earlier in the day in which he stole two rifles, including an AR-15 and ammunition, from his employer’s living quarters at the hotel, according to officials.

He left his truck at Bloomberg’s ranch and ordered the woman to drive them in her husband’s pickup truck to the Denver area and then to Cheyenne, where they stopped and he told her to get a room at the motel, according to court documents.

Investigators traced the woman’s iPad to the motel where they saw the pickup truck and examined surveillance video.

Motel staff told police which room they were in and a SWAT team raided it, freeing the woman and arresting Beecher.