Merced, CA (November 24, 2025) –A Merced man has been arrested in California and extradited to Connecticut in connection with a 2015 kidnapping and assault case, according to Putnam police and Connecticut court records. Authorities say 43-year-old Levi Caudell, identified in a police news release as being from Merced, California, was taken into custody in Merced on November 19, 2025, on an arrest warrant issued out of Danielson Superior Court and then transported to Connecticut to face charges.
According to Putnam Police, the case dates back to November 29, 2015, when a then-29-year-old man was abducted in Putnam, Connecticut. Investigators allege that Caudell was among a group of people who assaulted the victim and forcibly transported him from Putnam to the area of Pulaski State Park in neighboring Rhode Island, where he was left. Police said the victim suffered significant injuries and was hospitalized following the attack.
Police have described Caudell as the sixth and final person arrested in connection with the 2015 abduction. The fifth suspect in the case was taken into custody in Southern California in early 2023, according to earlier statements from Putnam police. Caudell faces multiple felony counts, including first-degree assault, first-degree kidnapping, cruelty to persons, second-degree threatening, first-degree reckless endangerment, conspiracy to commit first-degree assault and conspiracy to commit first-degree kidnapping.
Connecticut news outlets report that Caudell was ordered held on a court-set bond of $500,000 and scheduled to appear in Danielson Superior Court following his extradition. A separate local report that reviewed the arrest warrant application lists his bond as $250,000, and officials have not publicly addressed that discrepancy. Beyond the charges, police and prosecutors have not released additional details about the current stage of the case, and there have been no public statements from Caudell’s defense counsel.
Nearly a decade after the original assault, the arrest and extradition of Caudell mark a new phase in a long-running investigation that stretches across Connecticut, Rhode Island and California. Court proceedings in the coming months are expected to determine how the case moves forward and whether additional information about the 2015 incident will become part of the public record.
