Officers Freed on Bail in Rob, Kidnap Case : New disclosures: Two San Diego policemen were arrested five months ago in the incidents involving illegal aliens but were never charged. They returned to work after they were suspended without pay.

Two San Diego policemen charged with kidnaping and robbing illegal aliens were released Friday night on $35,000 bail each, after a judge was told that the officers were originally arrested five months ago in the case but never charged, and suspended for 30 days without pay and then reinstated.

Officers Lloyd J. Hoff Jr. and Richard P. Schaaf have pleaded not guilty to five felony counts each of kidnaping and robbing three Latino undocumented workers in two incidents downtown last August. If convicted, they could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison.

Although no assault charges were filed, court records contend that Hoff struck one of the Latinos in the testicles with his police flashlight and pushed him into a puddle of water. The officers also stole a total of $166 from the three men, according to the court documents.

When the pair were arrested Thursday morning, police officials announced that they also were being fired, after serving as patrol officers for about four years each in the San Diego Police Department.

But, in a bail review hearing Friday morning before Municipal Judge Timothy W. Tower, their defense attorneys revealed that the officers were arrested and disciplined when the allegations were first raised in August.

Attorneys James Gattey and Everett Bobbitt said the officers expected the allegations to amount to nothing because they were not charged with a crime in August, and because their 30-day suspensions were overturned and they were reinstated with the back pay.

“The suspensions were for 30 days, and then they were reinstated and went back to work,” said Gattey, who represents 27-year-old Hoff. “They have been at work every day since.”

Bobbitt, who represents Schaaf, 29, said the officers believed the allegations against them never had been substantiated until the San Diego County district attorney’s office recently took a renewed interest in the case.

“We got rumblings in the last couple of weeks that something was cooking,” Bobbitt said.

But the attorney pointed out that the facts in the case had not changed since August. “Everything they have now was available then,” he said of the district attorney’s office. “It’s all in the reports. And they reinstated them. What changed now? Nothing.”

Michael R. Pent, a deputy prosecutor in the district attorney’s special operations unit, declined to discuss specifics about how the case evolved. But he did tell the judge that the delay in bringing the charges was caused by problems regarding the “stability” of the victims, all of them Latinos who entered this country illegally.

“There is a whole lot at stake here,” he said. “We have undocumented, illegal aliens that we are having to take special precautions and measures for to ensure their presence in this case.”

In fact, Pent is asking that the case be hurried through the criminal justice system, another indication that he is concerned about whether his chief witnesses--the three victims--will be around for the trial.

Gattey and Bobbitt attacked the credibility of the three victims, identified as Rolando Carrera-Reyes, 23, Javier Perez-Gonzalez and Ramiro Rodriguez, both 21. They said one of the victims is now serving time in the El Cajon jail for burglarizing a car, and another has disappeared since registering a complaint with police in August.

In contrast, the defense attorneys said their clients are longtime members of the San Diego community, that they are homeowners and have wives and children, and would not be a flight risk if released on bail.

Several of their family friends, along with a representative of the Police Officers Assn., which is paying for their legal defense, and a police officer who lives near Hoff, attended the hearing, but did not address the court.

Gattey and Bobbitt asked that the judge release the officers on their personal recognizance, but Pent suggested a bail of $50,000 each.

The judge, noting the seriousness of the kidnaping charges, settled on a bail of $35,000 each.