Man’s Return Foils Robbers

An armed robbery attempt was foiled Thursday night when a Santa Ana Heights man arrived at his house to find his parents bound and gagged, Orange County sheriff’s deputies and neighbors said.

The young man, identified as Steve Balogh, was taken to College Hospital Costa Mesa with minor head injuries received in his encounter with the two robbers, according to Cal Farmer, who lives across the street from the Balogh home on Kline Drive near Pegasus Street.

Farmer said the younger Balogh and the parents, Steve and Rosa Balogh, told him the intruders entered the house and tied up the couple in a room upstairs. When the son arrived shortly after 9 p.m., unaware that his parents were upstairs, the intruders apparently attacked him, Farmer said.

“I was in my study and heard some cries in the street--’Help me! Help me!’ ” Farmer said. He then stepped out onto his porch and saw the younger Balogh in the street, his head severely beaten.

Farmer and his wife called the Sheriff’s Department, and arriving deputies scoured the area for the two assailants, using police to try to sniff them out. The search was called off after about an hour when no suspects were found, deputies said.

The younger Balogh, described as being in his 20s, told Farmer that the two robbers were tall, wore ski masks and were armed. Balogh jumped out of a window to get away from them, he told Farmer.

When the two fled, apparently without taking anything, the elder Balogh, a tailor, and his wife went to the Farmer home, their hands still tied, according to officers at the scene.