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KEARNS — Two Kearns men have been charged for a second time with holding a 14-year-old boy hostage at gunpoint because they believed he had thrown eggs at their house.
Albert Vivek Schuster, 29, and Lance Malologa Sauvao Elenio, 27, were charged Thursday in 3rd District Court with aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony, and aggravated assault, a third-degree felony. It's the same charges the two men faced in 2020, but those charges were dismissed several months later when prosecutors determined that they were unable to proceed with their case.
About 1:15 a.m. on April 21, 2020, Unified police were called to a residence near 5000 West and 6100 South on a report of someone throwing eggs at the house. At that time, no suspects were found.
About 90 minutes later, a 14-year-old boy was walking by the same house when he was chased by two adults and two teens, some of whom had been outside waiting to see if the person who threw eggs would return, according to charging documents.
"They caught him near a park. They began accusing him of egging their house and truck, which he denied," the charges state.
The two men, Schuster and Elenio, were armed with handguns while two teens had machetes, according to police. The group initially took the boy to his house, but when no one answered the door right away, they took him back to where the eggs had been thrown. Police later learned that the boy's mother had looked out her window and saw one of the men holding a gun.
After taking the boy back to the house, the boy stated that one of the men held a gun to his head, racked the slide and stated, "I want to kill you right here in the driveway," according to the charges.
Police say about 30 minutes later, after begging his captors not to harm him, the boy was allowed to return home. The 14-year-old said he believes the only reason he was not shot was because a woman came out of the house and asked the others what was going on, the charges say.
When the boy got home, his mother noted that he was "very traumatized' and "barely able to walk." Police were called back about 3:40 a.m. and found the boy "crying and in a fetal position" and initially unwilling to talk about what happened, the court documents allege.
Police served a search warrant on Schuster and Elenio's home and recovered two guns from a safe, two machetes in the backyard, and found "several other firearms and numerous boxes of ammunition," according to the charges.
