Man pleads guilty to federal charge in connection with St. Paul drug trafficking conspiracy
A man charged in connection with a drug trafficking and kidnapping conspiracy in St. Paul, Minnesota, pleaded guilty on Tuesday.
Court documents show Erling Holdahl pleaded guilty to one federal count of conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. He was one of 11 people who were associated with a Mexican drug trafficking organization.
Between July 2023 and January 2025, leaders arranged for large quantities of methamphetamine to be delivered to the Twin Cities area, where it was broken down into smaller parcels to sell.
In January, someone owed a leader a "substantial amount of money" that they couldn't pay for. Holdahl and three others lured the person who owed money to a location in St. Paul, chained them to a pole and held them against their will, the justice department said.
When talking with police, Holdahl admitted that he had been in contact with someone in Mexico named Rana, who alleged that Holdahl owed him $10,000, leading Holdahl to deal drugs sent to his shop to pay off the debt. Holdahl told police that "he was being forced into stuff he didn't want to be involved in," according to charging documents.
Holdahl told police that six guys wearing masks and armed with "machine guns" arrived in a minivan and brought the victim to the basement. Holdahl claims he wasn't there when the group arrived, but a friend of his was, charging documents say.
Holdahl claims that he and his codefendant, Kendra Johnson, didn't return to the shop until 9 or 10 p.m. that night, when they discovered the victim tied up in the basement. Charging documents say Holdahl wasn't able to identify any of the six men who brought the victim to the shop besides his other codefendant, Richar Mujica.
A surveillance camera near the Payne Avenue address showed several men coming and going from the shop at various times. Analysis of the surveillance camera footage did not show six different men wearing masks or carrying "machine guns" as Holdahl claimed, charging documents say.
Mujica and Johnson have both pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection with the kidnapping.
A sentencing date has not yet been set for Holdahl.