Feds add weapons charge in alleged Schenectady kidnapping

PHOTOGRAPHER: Steven Cook

A city man already facing local charges that he kidnapped a woman, threatened her at gunpoint and attempted to ransom her, now faces a federal weapons charge.

Frank Peace, 36, was arraigned this week in U.S. District Court in Albany on one count of possessing ammunition by a prohibited person.

Peace is accused of having 100 rounds of Speer .40-caliber ammunition and Hornady .40-caliber at his residence. The ammunition was found during a search by Schenectady police detectives, according to papers filed in federal court.

Peace could not possess ammunition due to a 1994 robbery conviction, according to the federal court paperwork.

Peace had been free since May on a $50,000 bond connected to the kidnapping case. He was initially arrested in April, but was picked up on the federal ammunition possession count this week.

His federal attorney requested release on the same bond amount set in the Schenectady County kidnapping case. Magistrate Judge David R. Homer, however, denied that request and ordered Peace held, records show.

Peace, of 412 Gifford St., is accused of kidnapping the woman, threatening her at gunpoint and attempting to ransom her for $2,000. He faces one count each of second-degree kidnapping, first-degree unlawful imprisonment and second-degree attempted grand larceny, all felonies, along with misdemeanor charges of criminal possession of a weapon, menacing and assault.

The kidnapping charge alone could send him to prison for 25 years. The local charges remain pending, prosecutor Tracey Brunecz said. No indictment has been handed up.

During the hour the unidentified woman was held captive on April 17, according to court papers, she was threatened at gunpoint. Peace allegedly told her: “One of two things [is] going to happen today: You’re going to give me $2,000 or I’m going to kill you today.”

The woman was restrained with handcuffs, a gag and a hood, according to court papers, and Peace held a loaded handgun to her head and pressed a stun gun against her several times, causing small burn marks on her body.

Peace‘s alleged plan to hold her for ransom — to be paid by the 21-year-old victim or her family — didn’t work. The woman fled as he arrived with her at her mother’s house and then notified authorities. He had taken her to her mother’s home in Colonie in hopes of obtaining $500 of the $2,000 ransom, according to the court papers.

The suspect fled when the young woman got away.

The federal charges relate only to the ammunition, and not the gun he allegedly threatened the woman with.

Peace had been sent to prison on three separate occasions dating back 20 years, according to state records. In the offense referenced in the federal charge, he was sentenced to 2 to 6 years for a 1993 gas station robbery.

He later spent time in prison in the late 1990s in a stolen credit card case. Both of those cases were from Fulton County.

Most recently, Peace was sentenced to two years in prison in an Albany County drug case. He was released in that case in November 2010 and was to be under supervision until November 2012.