A 28-year-old Chicago man was indicted on charges alleging he had kidnapped three drivers, and he was previously indicted on a charge of sexually abusing one of them, federal prosecutors said Friday.

A federal grand jury indicted Andrew Anania on three counts of kidnapping, two counts of carjacking and one firearms charge — crimes he allegedly committed while on pretrial release for a prior federal gun offense, according to a statement Friday from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Northern District of Illinois.

Each count of kidnapping is punishable by up to life imprisonment, and each count of carjacking is punishable by up to 25 years in federal prison, prosecutors said.

On Feb. 27, March 8 and March 10, 2021, Anania kidnapped the drivers of three vehicles, one on each date, prosecutors said. On two of the dates, he also stole the victims’ cars with “intent to cause death and serious bodily harm.”

In October 2021, Anania was indicted on a kidnapping charge for the March 8 attack, where he is also accused of sexually abusing the driver, prosecutors said. He was arrested on March 13, 2021, and has been in custody since then.

Before that attack, Chicago police officers had stopped Anania on Feb. 15, 2019, while he was driving in the Little Village neighborhood, prosecutors said. When officers approached him, Anania ran, and while officers chased him, they saw him throw a gun into a residential yard, prosecutors said.

Officers arrested Anania and found the gun shortly after, prosecutors said. Anania was indicted by a federal grand jury for being a felon in possession of a firearm on June 26, 2019, and a court later granted his request for pretrial release.

On Oct. 14, 2021, Anania pleaded guilty to the firearms offense, and he was sentenced to 40 months in prison on Feb. 14, 2022, prosecutors said.

pfry@chicagotribune.com

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