Costa Mesa : Stuck-in-Mud Suspect Finds Slime Doesn’t Pay

When Martin Hall returned to his Costa Mesa apartment late in the afternoon, he was bewildered to find his videotape recorder and stereo tuner stacked neatly by the front door. When he heard a noise upstairs, he went to investigate.

That’s when an intruder charged through a second-floor window, landing fortuitously in the shrubbery below. It may have been the only bit of luck the suspected burglar had Sunday, Costa Mesa police said Monday.

Hall took off in hot pursuit through his apartment complex at 635 Baker St. shortly after 5 p.m., leaving his wife to telephone police, according to Lt. Tom Durham.

The 26-year-old Hall nearly lost the chase when the suspect scaled a block wall and slogged through water in a nearby drainage ditch. But by the time help arrived, the suspect was stuck fast in thigh-deep mud. Reinforcements in the form of firefighters were called in.

“The officer put on waist-high waders, went out and tied a rope around the suspect, then pulled him out of the mud,” Durham said.

The soggy suspect--identified as Michael Barta, 22, of Santa Ana--was arrested on suspicion of residential burglary, Durham said.

He said only a 14-karat gold-plated Rolex wristwatch valued at $900 was missing.

Barta was being held Monday in the Costa Mesa City Jail in lieu of $25,000 bail.