A man who pled guilty to carjacking and kidnapping charges in 2022 was sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday.
Anthony Scott Gordon, 36, appeared in federal court this week and was handed a 30-year prison sentence for kidnapping, carjacking, and brandishing a firearm during the commission of a crime of violence. He had been indicted on these charges in November 2020 and pled guilty to them in September 2022, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay presided over Gordon’s sentencing hearing while Assistant U.S. Attorneys Joseph Lo Galbo and Melanie Smith were the acting prosecutors.
Gordon was brought to justice through a joint investigation conducted by the Fort Worth Police Department, the FBI Dallas Field Office, and the Dallas Police Department.
As he admitted in plea papers, Gordon targeted a Ford F150 parked off of Highway 20 in Fort Worth on August 6, 2020, and threatened the driver — referred to as M.G. — with a gun in each hand. She fled the vehicle and Gordon climbed inside, driving away.
The victim was 21 years old at the time and told NBC 5 DFW that Gordon had been shooting up cars and then crashed his vehicle prior to targeting her.
“At first I thought is this guy crazy? What is going on here?” she said.
He had several felony warrants out for his arrest as well as a parole violation, a news release from Fort Worth police stated.
A few days after this incident, Gordon committed another carjacking in Richardson. He entered the back of a retail shop and pulled a gun on a worker called A.J. in court documents. She complied when he ordered her to turn over the keys to her vehicle, which had been parked out front.
The kidnapping charges stem from two different incidents: one in August and the other in September 2020.
In the first, the victim was a woman called M.D., whom Gordon reportedly abducted to prevent her from going to the police and disclosing his unlawful activity. He hit her with his gun, demolished her iPhone, dragged her down a flight of stairs, and forced her into the backseat of his vehicle. After driving around Dallas, Gordon parked at a Motel 6, and M.D. escaped.
The second kidnapping victim was a woman named K.N., whom Gordon targeted inside her home while running from Fort Worth police after they busted up a drug deal. He held her at gunpoint until she managed to flee, running out the front door of her house towards police officers.
The harrowing accounts of Gordon’s criminal activities across North Texas on parole in 2020 shed light on the ongoing criticism of North Texas counties’ jail bond systems and more. For instance, as previously reported in The Dallas Express, local judges have recently lowered the bail amounts for suspects accused of violent offenses — including child sexual assault and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Nestor Hernandez was on parole for aggravated robbery when he shot and killed two healthcare workers at Methodist Dallas Medical Center on October 22, 2022. He has since been convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison.
In Dallas, there have been a total of 1,477 violent offenses logged since the start of the year as of March 6, according to data from the City’s crime analytics dashboard.
Amid a longstanding officer shortage within the Dallas Police Department, Downtown Dallas has seen considerably high crime rates, especially compared to neighboring Fort Worth, as recently reported by The Dallas Express. While DPD has just 3,000 officers in the field — considerably fewer than the 4,000 recommended in a City report — Fort Worth patrols its city center with a specialized police unit and private security teams.
Dallas city officials budgeted the department just $654 million this fiscal year, which is far less than the spending levels seen on police in other high-crime jurisdictions such as New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.