2 Seized in Kidnaping of Boy in Custody Case

Ventura County district attorney’s investigators on Friday arrested two Santa Monica men who they said abducted a son of one of the men from a church school class in Thousand Oaks in late September.

The men, Mitchell J. Gerstle, 28, and his cousin, Michael Steven Roth, 27, were arrested at their Santa Monica apartment on suspicion of felony child stealing and misdemeanor battery, said Thomas Varnes, senior district attorney investigator. The two were later released on $50,000 bail each, he said.

A statement issued by the district attorney’s office said the men removed Gerstle’s 4-year-old son, Joshua, from a Sunday school class at First Christian Church in Thousand Oaks. The boy’s maternal grandmother, Diana Hill, suffered minor injuries during a scuffle in the incident, Varnes said.

Gerstle returned the boy to his wife, Elizabeth, on Oct. 1, Varnes said. The Gerstles recently separated, and Elizabeth had been living with her parents in Thousand Oaks, according to the statement.

The arrest was not made for a month after the boy’s return to his mother because an unidentified Ventura County sheriff’s deputy incorrectly told the mother that she could only seek legal recourse through civil courts, Varnes said.