A 19-year-old Fargo man was sentenced on Tuesday to two years in a Kentucky prison for his role in an incident last fall that initially drew charges of attempted kidnapping.
Officials at a middle school in Bowling Green, Ky., became worried on Sept. 21 when Elvis Tahirovic, 19, and Dragan Jovanovic asked about the bus schedule and what time school let out.
After inquiring earlier in the day, the pair came back later to pick up a 14-year-old girl who had met the 14-year-old son of Jovanovic on the Internet. Police said she had agreed to marry the son; Tahirovic and Jovanovic had come to take the girl back to Fargo.
Both men were charged with attempted kidnapping, a Class B felony with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
In exchange for guilty pleas, prosecutors dropped the charge to second-degree unlawful transaction with a minor, a Class D felony maxing out at five years.
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Tahirovic was sentenced to two years on Tuesday after pleading guilty last month, said Kristy Vick-Stratton, an assistant commonwealth's attorney for the 8th Judicial Circuit in Warren County, Ky.
Jovanovic, 43, of Fargo, was sentenced to three years in prison on Jan. 26.
As Bosnians without U.S. citizenship, Tahirovic and Jovanovic may be deported when released from prison because of the felony convictions, prosecutors said.
Readers can reach Forum reporter Dave Roepke at (701) 241-5535
