Cheyenne, Wyoming — Federal jurors found a Colorado man guilty of kidnapping a lady on Michael Bloomberg’s property in what prosecutors described as an effort to assassinate the media magnate.
Joseph Beecher, 51, was convicted of abduction, carjacking, and firearms charges in Cheyenne on Wednesday and faces seven years to life in prison. The trial lasted two days, with the jury deliberating for an hour and a half.
The kidnapped woman, who worked as a housekeeper at a ranch in western Colorado, was found uninjured the next morning. Authorities discovered her and Beecher in a motel room in Cheyenne, around 200 miles (320 kilometers) northeast of the Bloomberg property.
The kidnapping occurred in February 2022, after Beecher was fired from his job as a hotel handyman in Craig, Colorado. According to court documents, he worked there in exchange for accommodation and was then asked to leave.
According to court filings, Beecher went hunting for Bloomberg and his family and slammed his pickup truck through the gate of the former New York City mayor’s ranch located about 70 miles (113 kilometers) from Craig.
Bloomberg purchased the ranch in 2020 for $44.8 million. The Bloomberg family was not present during the incident.
The woman kidnapped at gunpoint didn’t know Beecher. His rationale for pursuing Bloomberg was unclear. However, Beecher was “intent on killing Bloomberg,” authorities claimed in a statement Thursday.
The lady, who was not identified in federal court records, worked as the ranch’s supervising housekeeper. She told investigators that she was in an upstairs bedroom when she heard a man question who she was. She turned to see Beecher brandishing a black “machine gun” at her, she explained.
Beecher was a suspect in a burglary earlier that day in which he stole two firearms, including an AR-15 and ammunition, from his employer’s hotel room, according to officials.
According to court filings, he abandoned his truck at Bloomberg’s ranch and directed the lady to drive them in her husband’s pickup truck to the Denver region and then to Cheyenne, where they stopped and he urged her to book a room at the motel.
Investigators followed the woman’s iPad to the motel where they observed the pickup truck and reviewed CCTV footage.
The motel personnel alerted authorities which room they were in, and a SWAT team invaded it, releasing the woman and detaining Beecher.
