2 Arraigned in Use of Missing Man’s Money : Mystery: Two former teachers are held without bail on charges of spending a vanished accountant’s life savings.

Two former Santa Monica teachers, facing minor charges in a Las Vegas federal court, were arraigned Friday before a federal magistrate who has said “a strong finger of suspicion” points to them in the possible murder of a vanished Glendale accountant.

Stanley Alan Hershey, 46, and his wife, Jan Vicki Fine, 37, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, illegal use of a banking card and transportation of a stolen vehicle across state lines. A federal grand jury indicted the couple on the charges March 15.

A trial was scheduled for April 30 in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas.

The couple was arrested March 1 in Las Vegas by FBI agents who said they were driving a Suzuki auto owned by Gordon T. Johnson, 62, who has not been seen since he telephoned relatives Oct. 14 from a trailer park in Bend, Ore.

State records show that both Hershey and Fine have master’s degrees and California teaching credentials and are specialists in teaching students with learning handicaps. They had taught at a private Santa Monica school, the Wilshire West School, before they were married in November, 1988.

Assistant U.S. Atty. J. Gregory Damm said in a court hearing Monday that the couple had taken Johnson’s $219,000 motor home, the Suzuki and had withdrawn more than $100,000--Johnson’s life savings--from the missing man’s bank account. Damm said the couple had stayed in two trailer parks, in Minnesota and Oregon, at the same time as Johnson before his disappearance.