Miami Federal Jury Finds Serge Nkorina Guilty Of Kidnapping, Torturing Plastic Surgeon

MIAMI (CBSMiami) - A federal jury in Miami returned a guilty verdict against a man who kidnapped a plastic surgeon at gunpoint and later tortured him inside a storage container with a blow torch.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert F. Moore and Marc Chattah presented evidence that from late 2018 to early 2019, Serge Nkorina and his co-conspirator, Justin Boccio, plotted to kidnap and torture a victim in an attempt to obtain tens of thousands of dollars from him.

The victim had treated Nkorina's wife.

Federal officials said that to learn the victim's daily movements, Nkorina and Boccio stalked the victim at home and work and placed a GPS tracker on the bottom of his car.

To get ready for the torture session, Nkorina and Boccio purchased devices from hardware and medical supply stores and rented a storage container in Margate to use as the torture site, according to officials.

Prosecutors said that Nkorina and Boccio followed the victim from work to a supermarket and when the victim returned to his car with groceries, they tased his neck and threw him into a van.

Officials said that Nkorina and Boccio took the victim to the Margate storage container, where they tortured him for hours. Nkorina burned the victim's hands with a blow torch, forcing the victim to reveal the security gate and door codes to his home. When Nkorina and Boccio tried to use the information that night to enter the victim's home, they were scared off by a light connected to the doorbell camera. Nkorina and Boocio aborted the plan and dumped the victim at a strip club parking lot.

The jury found Nkorina guilty of conspiring to commit kidnapping and kidnapping.

Nkorina will be sentenced on February 15, 2021, in federal district court in Miami. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Justin Boccio previously pled guilty and is currently serving a 135-month sentence.