Couple Released by Nicaragua Now Feared Lost at Sea

A former Orange County couple held captive for three weeks by Nicaraguan authorities are feared to be missing at sea, the U.S. State Department said Thursday.

Norma Harms of the State Department’s Nicaragua desk in Washington said that Leo LaJeunesse and his wife, Dolores, both 53, left Nicaragua on their sailboat last Saturday and should have arrived in Panama on Thursday. No trace has been found of them, and a U.S. military helicopter based in Panama started aerial searches for them that same day, she said.

The LaJeunesses, formerly of Costa Mesa, were sailing to Orange County via the Panama Canal when their 65-foot sailboat was seized by the Nicaraguan Coast Guard Aug. 7 in the Caribbean.

The couple were taken to Bluefields, Nicaragua, and held there until last Saturday, when they were allowed to leave, State Department officials said. Although no charges were formally placed against the couple, Nicaraguan officials accused them of spying and gun-running.

According to Orange Coast College officials in Costa Mesa, the LaJeunesses were sailing back to California so that Leo LaJeunesse could again work in community college education. LaJeunesse was an associate dean at Orange Coast College until 1982, when he resigned to embark on an extensive sailboat cruise with his wife.

Harms said Dolores LaJeunesse was ill with a severe case of gastroenteritis--an inflammation of the stomach and intestines--when Nicaragua finally freed the couple. She said Leo LaJeunesse may have had to do most or all of the sailing himself, and added that the auxiliary engine on the LaJeunesses’ boat was reportedly not working when they left Nicaragua.

“We were told that the radio on their boat was also not working, and that explains why we haven’t heard anything from them by radio,” Harms said.