A man accused of plotting his son’s kidnapping to collect ransom to pay off gambling debts was arraigned Monday on three felony counts and ordered held on $100,000 bail.
Marko Ivezic, 37, told police his 12-year-old son was abducted at gunpoint by two masked men Friday night, Police Chief William Dwyer said. Ivezic said the two abductors told him to go to a Romulus hotel with $10,000 to get his son back. The boy was found handcuffed to a bathroom sink in a Farmington Hills hotel Saturday.
But in court Monday, prosecutors said the father planned the kidnapping–and the son knew about it. Dwyer said Ivezic handcuffed the boy himself and told him he would not be there for very long.
The boy and his 10-year-old sister live in New York with their mother but had traveled to Michigan to visit their father.
Authorities believe Ivezic owed $50,000 to loan sharks and that a “muscle man” approached him with the fake kidnapping plot to get the ransom money from his estranged wife’s family.
