Man who 'tried to kill' Michael Bloomberg sentenced for kidnapping housekeeper

Federal juries have found a Colorado man guilty of kidnapping a woman from a ranch owned by Michael Bloomberg. Prosecutors say Bloomberg was the one who tried to kill the media mogul.

Joseph Beecher, 51, faces seven years to life in prison after being convicted Wednesday in Cheyenne of kidnapping, carjacking and firearms charges. The trial lasted two days and the jury deliberated for an hour and a half.

The kidnapped woman, a housekeeper at the ranch in western Colorado, was rescued unharmed the morning after the abduction. Authorities found her and Beecher in a motel room in Cheyenne, about 200 miles northeast of the Bloomberg property.

The kidnapping occurred in February 2022, after Beecher was fired from his job as a handyman in Craig, Colorado, where he worked in exchange for housing and was told to leave, court documents said.

An undated photo of Joseph Beecher. File photo: Laramie County Sheriff’s Office via AP

Beecher went looking for Bloomberg and his family, ramming his pickup truck into the gate of the former New York City mayor’s ranch, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) from Craig, court documents said.

Bloomberg had purchased the ranch in 2020 for US$44.8 million. The Bloomberg family was not present at the time of the kidnapping.

The woman who was abducted at gunpoint did not know Beecher. His motivation for seeking out Bloomberg was unclear. But Beecher was “with the intention to kill Bloomberg”prosecutors said in a statement on Thursday.

The woman, who was not named in federal court documents, was identified as the ranch’s supervising housekeeper. She told investigators she was in an upstairs bedroom when she heard a man ask who she was. She turned around and saw Beecher pointing a black “machine gun” at her, she said.

According to officials at the time, Beecher was suspected in a burglary earlier in the day in which he stole two rifles, including an AR-15, and ammunition from his employer’s living quarters at the hotel.

He left his truck at Bloomberg’s ranch and ordered the woman to drive them in her husband’s pickup truck to Denver and then to Cheyenne, where they stopped and he told her to get a room at the motel, court documents state.

Investigators were able to track the woman’s iPad to the motel, where they saw the pickup truck and viewed surveillance footage.

Motel staff told police which room they were staying in, and a SWAT team stormed the room, freed the woman, and arrested Beecher.