Broward man gets 26 years for kidnapping, carjacking chauffeur

Bakari Jahiem Dixson, a 24-year-old from West Park, was sentenced to more than 26 years in federal prison after a jury convicted him of kidnapping, carjacking and carrying a gun during a violent crime. U.S. District Judge Michael Moore imposed the sentence in the Southern District of Florida.

Federal prosecutors said Dixson was convicted on one count of kidnapping, one count of carjacking and one count of possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence. The case centered on a hired chauffeur, not a random road encounter, which added a coercive kidnapping element to the robbery. Prosecutors said Dixson ordered the driver to “drive or be killed” at gunpoint after he allegedly shot a woman.

The sentence puts a Broward County defendant behind bars for a term that will keep him in federal prison well into middle age. West Park, where Dixson lived, sits in a county that has continued to wrestle with violent crimes that spill into cars, driveways and public streets, where a gun can turn a routine ride into a kidnapping in seconds.

The Justice Department identified the case as one in which a hired driver was taken during the crime, a detail that separates it from the more familiar pattern of a street carjacking. In Broward and across South Florida, that kind of violence leaves witnesses, riders and drivers facing the same basic threat: compliance at gunpoint or the risk of being killed.

The nearly three-decade sentence reflects the federal charges prosecutors used to hold Dixson accountable for the kidnapping and carjacking scheme. It also underscores how prosecutors and juries are treating armed crimes that begin with a ride, end with a stolen vehicle and leave a Broward neighborhood dealing with the aftermath.