Two Miami men sentenced to life after conviction in kidnapping plot that left two dead
Two Miami men have been sentenced to life in prison after being found guilty of multiple charges related to a 2020 kidnapping plot that left two people dead and another critically injured.
James Edward Daniels, 59, and Frederick Eugene Rudolph, 69, were given the maximum punishment on Friday by U.S. District Judge Roy Altman, following their jury trial in Miami federal court in December. A third defendant, Herbert Barr, 56, who pleaded guilty to a kidnapping charge in November, received a 12 1/2-year sentence.
The men were charged with kidnapping three people from a truck yard in Opa-locka on Dec. 5, 2020 after stealing their drugs, according to a federal indictment. The victims were bound, tortured and driven around in a rented U-Haul van before being taken to an abandoned house, where the kidnappers tried to kill them by shooting them point-blank in the head.
The victims — identified by the Miami Herald at the time as Osmar Oliva, 50, Johan Gonzalez Quesada, 26, and an unnamed man — were brutally beaten, shot and dumped on the 1800 block of Rutland Street. Oliva and Gonzalez Quesada died from their injuries, while the third victim survived.
READ MORE: Cops seek killers who kidnapped, tortured and executed two truckers in Opa-locka
Oliva, a father of three and owner of Oliva Delivery Corp. in Opa-locka, was remembered by his grieving widow as “a very good person,” she told the Herald after his death.
Gonzalez Quesada, a father of two young daughters, including a newborn, was described by his father, Ovidio Gonzalez Roche, as “a marvelous person” with “a huge heart.”
“This is such an extraordinary shock,” his father told the Herald. “I can’t explain what’s happened.”
Prosecutors said Daniels and Rudolph, along with their accomplice, planned the crime days in advance, meeting to rent cars and coordinate the robbery. Daniels also stole jewelry from one of the murder victims, they said.
The case was investigated by the FBI, DEA and Miami-Dade Police Department, and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Yara Dodin, Nardia Haye and Katie Guthrie.
This story was originally published March 25, 2025 at 5:11 PM.
