Decatur Man Pleads Guilty to Kidnapping and Child Sex-Trafficking Charges

BIRMINGHAM – A Decatur man pleaded guilty today in federal court to kidnapping and child sex-trafficking charges as part of a detailed plan to hire someone to kidnap a woman and her 14-year-old daughter, announced U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp Jr.

BRIAN DAVID “Blaze” BOERSMA, 48, entered his guilty pleas before U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor to attempted kidnapping of a minor, attempted kidnapping, attempted sex trafficking of a child, possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and possessing a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime. A sentencing date has not been set.

“Boersma has revealed the worst parts of human depravity and his guilty plea provides little comfort to those who would have suffered unspeakable horrors,” Town said. “He will spend most, if not all, of the remainder of his life in prison…and then he has hell to look forward to.”

“It is unacceptable for adults to take advantage of minors in such a way that will forever impact their lives, and the deplorable behavior exhibited in this case is beyond comprehension,” Sharp said. “Human trafficking steals the innocence from our children and young women, and individuals like Boersma, who prey upon the vulnerable, need to be removed from our society.”

 Boersma worked at the Alabama Farmers’ Cooperative in Decatur shuttling trailers from the storage yard to the warehouse where they would be loaded with merchandise for shipment to other locations. His plea agreement with the government lays out his efforts in the fall of 2017 to encourage a co-worker at the co-op to find someone willing to kidnap a woman and her daughter for payment. Boersma, in installments, gave the co-worker $3,440 to hold for a kidnapping payment. The co-worker alerted the FBI to Boersma’s plan in mid-September and the bureau sent two undercover employees to pose as willing kidnappers.

According to Boersma’s plea agreement, he intended to carry out the kidnappings and child sex-trafficking as follows:

Boersma boasted to his co-worker that he would sell the child to a pimp he knew in Memphis, Tenn., and hoped to get as much as $40,000 because she was “a young, clean virgin.” Ultimately, his contact in Memphis offered him only $8,000 for the girl, Boersma said.

 Boersma had outfitted a trailer at the co-op with a mattress and restraints for holding the mother and daughter. He also placed inside the trailer a metal “sex device” he had built so the woman could be tied to it, beaten and raped.

Boersma claimed that the woman’s ex-husband wanted the woman and child kidnapped as retribution for the woman divorcing him and taking him to court for child support. He said the ex-husband wanted to beat the woman with a bullwhip and it would be a “bloody mess” in the trailer. He said he put plastic down inside the trailer to help with clean up. Boersma also told the undercover FBI employees that once the woman was dead, he would “have to go get 300 pounds of lime and dig a hole.” He said he would get the lime from the co-op and bury the body under a nearby bridge.

On Oct. 10, Boersma and his co-worker met at a Decatur hotel with the undercover FBI agents who Boersma believed would kidnap the mother and child. Boersma told the agents what he wanted done, provided photos of the two intended victims and handed the agents $3,440. He then led the agents to the woman’s workplace, to her home and to the co-op, where he showed them the trailer he had prepared for holding the victims.

Shortly after returning to the hotel, police arrested Boersma as he approached his pickup truck. A loaded Smith & Wesson M&P .40-caliber pistol was recovered in a subsequent search of the truck. Boersma was prohibited from possessing the gun because of a felony unlawful possession of a controlled substance conviction in Shelby County, Tenn., in 1998.

The prison penalty for attempted kidnapping of a minor is a minimum of 20 years. Attempted sex trafficking of children carries a prison penalty of 10 years to life. Attempted kidnapping carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence. The maximum prison sentence for possessing a firearm as a convicted felon is 10 years. Possessing a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime carries a minimum five-year prison sentence that must run consecutively to any other term of imprisonment imposed.

The FBI investigated the case, which Assistant U.S. Attorney Davis Barlow is prosecuting.