A Dunkirk man, who was convicted of a 2016 kidnapping in a retrial that took place in June, is headed to state prison.

Samuel Saeli, 46, has been sentenced by Judge Paul B. Wojtasek to 19 years in state prison with 20 years of post-release supervision after he was convicted by a Chautauqua County jury of second-degree kidnapping as a sexually motivated felony.

District Attorney Jason Schmidt is expected to issue a statement later today regarding the sentence.

The case was reheard after a New York appeals court dismissed a 16-year state prison sentence and ordered a new trial.

In that ruling, the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court, Fourth Department, reversed two convictions against Saeli — second-degree kidnapping and second-degree kidnapping as a sexually motivated felony.

Saeli kidnapped a 13-year-old boy from the Fredonia Walmart parking lot in August 2016. The victim reportedly entered Saeli’s vehicle and left the parking lot, but was reunited with his family about 40 minutes later near Cushing Street in Fredonia.

In their ruling, the appellate justices said Chautauqua County Court erred in denying Saeli’s motion during the trial when he sought to suppress evidence obtained from a search warrant. The evidence, a portion of his internet searches, was discovered when police used a warrant to go through his cell phone.

In his appeal, Saeli said the search warrant lacked “particularity” in that it wasn’t specific to the internet search history.

The appeals court agreed.

After a trial in 2018, the victim’s mother told the OBSERVER that “justice was served for my boy and our family.” The mother also indicated that her son and Saeli did not know each other.

Saeli initially had been charged with second-degree kidnapping, a class B felony, after video footage showed him leaving Walmart with the boy. The District Attorney’s Office later added the sexually-motivated felony charge after a forensic investigation confirmed the presence of Saeli’s DNA present on the boy and his clothing.