A former Mountain View Chevrolet car salesman who authorities say kidnapped a partially paralyzed customer and forced him to withdraw money from his bank account "under fear of death" has been indicted by a grand jury on three counts.
Daniel Clayton Bryant, who had fled the area and was found in Texas, is charged with kidnapping, bank robbery and money laundering, according to the federal indictment obtained by prosecutors on April 23.
In their indictment, federal prosecutors said they also want Bryant, if convicted, to forfeit any proceeds from the alleged kidnapping and any other property involved in the offense. His assets include nearly $288,000 in his bank account, the federal indictment says.
A federal affidavit charged Bryant with driving a partially disabled Mountain View customer against his will to multiple banks in Tennessee and Georgia between April 1, 2019, and April 2, 2019, withdrawing nearly $200,000 from the customer's account in cashier's checks, depositing it into his account and then forcing him at one point to smoke crack cocaine in a hotel room.
Two days after Chattanooga police found the disabled man on April 3 and made a report, an FBI agent got permission to take money out of Bryant's bank account and track his cellphones, documents say. Bryant then fled to Atlanta and ultimately was captured in Texas. Court records show no attorney has made an appearance on his behalf, and he has no court date scheduled yet.
During an initial hearing Tuesday in a federal court in Texas, Bryant was deemed a flight risk and danger to the community and ordered to pretrial detention. Hamilton County Jail records do not have him listed as an inmate there, but oftentimes people facing federal charges are held elsewhere.
Contact staff writer Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow him on Twitter @zackpeterson918.