Local News in Brief : 8-Year Term in Kidnaping
An East Los Angeles man was sentenced to eight years in prison Tuesday for stealing Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s car outside Spago restaurant in June and kidnaping and threatening to kill Reiner’s bodyguard.
Arturo Samaniego, 34, was convicted in September in a non-jury trial in Santa Monica Superior Court of kidnaping, assault with a firearm on a peace officer, robbery, auto theft and being an ex-felon in possession of a gun.
A co-defendant, Victor M. Lopez, 21, of Montebello, failed to appear Tuesday for a pretrial hearing and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest, Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald de Nicola said.
De Nicola said that Samaniego and a third man, who remains a fugitive, briefly abducted district attorney’s investigator Henry Grayson and threatened him with death as he sat in Reiner’s car. Lopez is accused of driving the others to the crime scene.
Reiner and his family were inside the fashionable Sunset Boulevard restaurant.
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