They Claimed a Citizens’ Arrest : Charges to Be Dismissed Against 4 in Kidnap Case

Federal prosecutors have decided to drop their efforts to convict four Los Angeles-area businessmen accused of kidnaping a former employee who reportedly admitted stealing more than $100,000 from a check-cashing firm, officials said Tuesday.

The decision by the U.S. attorney’s office to move for a dismissal follows a mistrial that was declared last month in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana when a jury deadlocked.

“We’re all elated and feel that the U.S. attorney did the right thing by dropping the charges against us. This gets rid of a dark cloud that was hanging over our future,” said Ronald Phares, one of four co-defendants in the case.

The four, all associated with a company called U.S. Check Exchange, had faced life in prison if retried and convicted of kidnaping and conspiracy charges.

Officials in the U.S. attorney’s office refused to discuss the reasons behind their decision to drop the charges.

But William Graysen of Los Angeles, one of several defense attorneys in the kidnaping trial, said: “They realized that they didn’t have a good case, that they could never convince 12 people of our clients’ guilt and that the best they could hope for would be more hung juries.”

After the theft of between $100,000 and $150,000 in cash from a U.S. Check Exchange franchise in Bell in May, 1987, the four defendants hired a private detective to track down Freddie Collazo, who managed the business at the time.

They allege that Collazo took the cash. Collazo, unavailable for comment, told an FBI agent in a sworn court deposition that he took the money from a store safe, and lawyers and court aides present at the kidnaping trial also said he readily admitted the crime at the trial.

But Collazo was granted limited immunity by the U.S. attorney’s office to testify against Phares and his co-defendants in the kidnaping trial.

Phares and his associates, frustrated by the inability of police to make an arrest in the theft, had tracked down Collazo themselves in El Paso, Tex., where he had moved immediately after the theft.

Claiming a citizens’ arrest, the four allegedly lured Collazo out of his mobile home one morning in October, 1987, threw him in their rental car and turned him over more than two days later to police in Bell.

Prosecutors in the case had alleged that during that cross-country trek, the captors had beaten Collazo, been armed with a gun and made death threats against him and demanded ransom from his girlfriend in Texas. Those charges were denied by the defendants, who said they merely wanted to bring Collazo to police and see the money returned to U.S. Check Exchange.

After the hung jury, federal prosecutors were due to appear this week before U.S. District Judge Alicemarie H. Stotler to tell the court whether they planned to try the case again or throw it out.

But preempting that schedule, prosecutors made “a last-minute change of plans” and filed for dismissal, according to Mary McMenimen of the U.S. attorney’s office.

A court clerk said Judge Stotler has not yet signed the dismissal order.

Collazo’s immunity prevents only the use of his testimony from being used against him in any prosecution, according to attorneys for the defendants.

The other defendants in the case were David L. Rau and Charles E. Peacock, both of Los Angeles, and Chris G. Brooks, who has since been transferred to a U.S. Check Exchange outlet in Phoenix.