Trial Ordered in Kidnaping of Boy From Adoptive Parents

A private security guard accused of kidnaping a 13-month-old boy from the Pacific Palisades home of his adoptive parents told police he planned the abduction with the boy’s natural mother, but said it was actually carried out by a man named Rico, a police detective testified Tuesday.

At the conclusion of the preliminary hearing in which the detective took the witness stand, Los Angeles Municipal Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis ordered the security guard, Jonathan H. Cosby, 27, of North Hollywood, to stand trial on separate felony charges of kidnaping and child stealing. He is to be arraigned on Jan. 5 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The boy’s natural mother, Bonnie Kiefer, 40, and her husband, Francis Kiefer, 41, are in custody in Mercer County, N.J., pending extradition to California, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeannette Bernstein, who is prosecuting the case.

The boy, Brian Smith, was with the Kiefers when they were arrested at their home in Moorestown, N.J., two days after the Dec. 11 abduction.

Cosby’s attorney, Richard Knickerbocker, argued that his client committed no crime because he was acting at the behest of the child’s legal parents. The California court order awarding custody of Brian to the adoptive parents is not final, Knickerbocker said, because the Kiefers are appealing the decision. The judge, however, rejected the argument.

During Tuesday’s preliminary hearing, Los Angeles Police Detective Norman A. Jackson recounted the story Cosby told police three days after the alleged kidnaping. The FBI located Cosby after investigators found his name written on the back of a “Dial-A-Guard” business card in Bonnie Kiefer’s possession.

Jackson testified that in an interview at the FBI office in Westwood, Cosby said that Bonnie Kiefer had telephoned his answering service on Dec. 4 to make arrangements for Cosby to provide bodyguard services during Kiefer’s pending visit to Los Angeles.

Four days later, Cosby told police, he met Kiefer at a Santa Monica motel, where she gave him a $400 advance for his work. After they got into Cosby’s car and began driving toward the hills north of Santa Monica, Cosby said Kiefer revealed that her true purpose in coming to California was to recover her son.

Began Watching House

“She told him that she wanted to get her baby back and she needed his help,” Jackson testified.

Cosby told authorities that Kiefer directed him to a knoll above the Pacific Palisades home of Kenneth and Barbara Smith, who had agreed through Kiefer’s attorney in the summer of 1986 to adopt Kiefer’s then-unborn child. The boy had been living with the Smiths since two days after he was born on Nov. 5, 1986.

Kiefer pulled a pair of binoculars from her handbag and began watching the house, Cosby said.

In meetings over the next two days, Cosby recalled, Kiefer suggested that they would need help in carrying out the abduction. “‘Snatch the baby’ were the words he (Cosby) used,” Jackson testified.

Cosby told police that he arranged for a friend named Danny to assist and paid him $100 of a promised $300 fee, but Danny failed to show up for a meeting on Dec. 11, the day the abduction was planned.

Picked Up ‘Rico’

Jackson testified that Cosby told authorities Kiefer “freaked out,” but then said, “We’re going to do it anyway. I’ve got a plan.”

Kiefer stopped at a pay telephone on Pacific Coast Highway, made a call and waited for a minute. The phone rang, and then they drove off, Cosby told police.

“He said they drove a few blocks and picked up a person she introduced as Rico,” Jackson testified. Cosby described Rico as a heavy-set man with a full mustache. The trio then drove to the Smith’s home, where Brian was in the care of a baby sitter.

Cosby told police that Rico walked into an open garage and knocked on a door. Using a toy gun that Cosby said he had fashioned from two wooden dowels, Rico, accompanied by Kiefer, entered the home and took Brian, who was in an upstairs bedroom, according to Cosby’s account.

Cosby said they drove off with the boy, and dropped Rico off a few blocks away, Jackson testified. They drove to Long Beach, picked up Cosby’s girlfriend, and then drove Kiefer and Brian to Las Vegas, arriving early on the morning of Dec. 12, Cosby told authorities. Later that day, Cosby told police, Kiefer and Brian flew to Philadelphia. Jackson testified that police have been unable to find Rico.

Account Differs

The 21-year-old baby sitter, who said she opened the door to face a tall, dark-skinned man wielding a sawed-off shotgun, offered a significantly different account of what happened on the night of Dec. 11.

Carlota Atlee testified that a lone gunman wearing a baseball-type cap forced her at gunpoint into an upstairs bedroom where he bound and gagged her with surgical tape, and then made off with the baby. No one else entered the house, she testified.