Abduction Suspect Faces 9 Drug Counts

Angelo Pace, the Newport Beach man who allegedly abducted his daughter in Florida four years ago, trafficked in cocaine, hashish and a drug sometimes used to manufacture imitation Quaaludes, according to a nine-count federal grand jury indictment made public Thursday.

Pace, 45, was arrested Monday after he dropped off his daughter, Monique Nicole, 9, for her first day in a fourth-grade class at the Carden Christian School in Costa Mesa. As Pace was being taken to the federal prison on Terminal Island, Monique was reunited with her mother, Vickie Croes, of Hialeah, Fla., at the Costa Mesa police station.

Croes had last seen her daughter on Aug. 26, 1982, when she allowed Pace, from whom she was getting a divorce, to take Monique on an overnight trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.

Pace did not return the next day. Croes was awarded custody of Monique by a Florida court in March, 1983, but by then Pace, an Italian citizen, was in Rome with his daughter, trying unsuccessfully to get a court there to award him custody.

All the charges filed against Pace stem from drug-trafficking that allegedly took place between 1979 and Aug. 30, 1982. According to the indictment, Pace conspired to import cocaine from Peru and distribute that drug and hashish in the United States. He is also charged with exporting cocaine to Canada and possessing cocaine and 10,000 pills of diazepam, a prescription drug often sold illegally as Quaaludes.

The largest amount of cocaine that Pace and his co-conspirators, who are not named in the indictment, are alleged to have intended to buy is four kilograms. They also allegedly planned to purchase 10,000 pounds of hashish “through sources of supply” in southern Florida, according to the indictment.

The indictment also says Pace conspired to obtain material to cut and prepare cocaine for distribution.

Drug enforcement agents in Florida and Orange County said they did not know when Pace first came to California. Last October, he enrolled Monique in the third grade at the Carden School in La Habra, said its director, Carol Tracy. School records showed that Pace and his daughter were living in Diamond Bar at the time, Tracy said.

“She was just a normal kid, no problems,” Tracy said, who added that the girl’s father used to pick her up in a white Corvette. Monique’s records were transferred to the Carden Christian School in Costa Mesa after she enrolled there this year, Tracy said.

When Pace was arrested Monday, he was driving a new, tan Rolls-Royce Corniche, authorities said.

Pace (whose name is pronounced Pah-che), also reportedly drove a black Porsche with a Louisiana plate that read BLACKIE.

Don Prijatel, director of the Missing Children Network in Dayton, Ohio, said his organization sent out a description of Monique, her father and the car, and had her picture broadcast by television stations around the country.

“We got about 40 calls on that car,” Prijatel said.

But it was a picture of Monique in an August newsletter distributed by Fuddruckers Restaurants that finally led to the girl’s reunion with her mother and to her father’s arrest. The picture was sent to Fuddruckers by Jo Ann Currier, founder of Child Keyppers, a Lake Worth, Fla., group that distributes information about missing children. Currier sent the photo to the newsletter because Monique had reportedly been seen recently in California, Currier said.

About two weeks ago, Currier received calls from three different people who said they recognized Monique’s picture in the restaurant’s newsletter. One was from a man who knew that Monique had attended the La Habra school last year; he told Currier that he would track down the father’s address.

Another woman called to say that she had taken the picture to school authorities and that they were going to confront her father, Currier said. She would not say whether it was the La Habra school or the Costa Mesa school. Authorities at both schools declined to confirm the reports.

Jay Howell, executive director of the Washington-based National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, said his organization also received a call from a person who had seen the missing girl.

Both organizations notified authorities in Florida, who contacted Costa Mesa police. About the same time, federal drug agents in Florida told Costa Mesa police that they, too, were looking for Pace in connection with drug-trafficking.

When police here tracked Pace to a house on Vista Dorado in Newport Beach, the drug agents obtained a warrant for his arrest.