A man from Colorado was found guilty by federal jurors of kidnapping a woman on a ranch belonging to Michael Bloomberg in an apparent attempt to harm the media mogul. Joseph Beecher, aged 51, faces a sentence ranging from seven years to life in prison following his convictions on charges of kidnapping, carjacking, and firearms offenses. The trial took place in Cheyenne and lasted two days, with the jury deliberating for ninety minutes.
The victim, a housekeeper at the ranch in western Colorado, was rescued unharmed on the morning after the kidnapping. Law enforcement located her and Beecher in a Cheyenne motel, approximately 200 miles away from Bloomberg’s property. The abduction occurred in February 2022, subsequent to Beecher being fired from his job as a hotel handyman in Craig, Colorado, where he lived in exchange for work.
After his dismissal, Beecher sought out Bloomberg and his family, driving his pickup truck through the gate of the former New York City mayor’s ranch located around 70 miles from Craig. The billionaire had purchased the ranch for $44.8 million in 2020, although he and his family were not present during the kidnapping incident. The woman, who was taken at gunpoint, was unfamiliar with Beecher, and his specific reasons for targeting Bloomberg remained unclear.
Prosecutors asserted that Beecher was determined to harm Bloomberg. The victim, described as the supervising housekeeper at the ranch, recalled being confronted by Beecher holding a black “machine gun” in an upstairs bedroom. Earlier the same day, Beecher was a suspect in a burglary in which he stole two rifles, including an AR-15 and ammunition, from his employer’s living area at the hotel.
Abandoning his truck at Bloomberg’s ranch, Beecher instructed the woman to drive them in her husband’s pickup truck towards Denver and then Cheyenne, where they ultimately checked into a motel. Investigators managed to track the woman’s iPad signal to the motel, leading to the identification of the room they were in. Subsequently, law enforcement conducted a SWAT raid on the room, apprehending Beecher and freeing the woman safely.
