Local News in Brief : Prison for Reiner Car Thief
A second defendant was sentenced Monday to eight years in state prison for stealing Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner’s car outside the swank Spago restaurant and kidnaping his bodyguard last June.
Jose Escarcega, 35, pleaded guilty last month to a kidnaping charge in a plea bargain with prosecutors, under which assault and robbery charges were dismissed at sentencing by Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Robert Thomas.
A convicted accomplice, Arturo Samaniego, 35, was previously sentenced to eight years in state prison. A third defendant, Victor M. Lopez, 20, who had been free on $30,000 bail, disappeared after failing to appear for a pretrial hearing last October and remains a fugitive.
Reiner’s county-issued car was stolen by three armed men as Reiner, his wife, two children and Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne were dining at the West Hollywood restaurant. Reiner’s bodyguard, who was sitting in the car, was briefly kidnaped and threatened with death before managing to escape unharmed.
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