San Diego

A Vista Superior Court judge on Monday ordered two Carlsbad men to stand trial May 22 for the alleged January abduction of an undocumented alien outside the Country Store market on El Camino Real.

Randy Ryberg, a baker at the store operated by his brother, Rick, and William Zimmerman, a self-employed meat cutter there, have been charged with felony false imprisonment in the purported abduction of Candido Gayosso Salas, a migrant laborer from Mexico.

Gayosso was waiting for day labor outside the rural market when the two men allegedly dragged him behind the store and handcuffed him to a railing for more than two hours. Before releasing him, the men bound Gayosso with duct tape and fastened a bag over his head with a clown’s face and the phrase “ No Mas Aqui ,” which in Spanish roughly means “Don’t Come Back.”

Investigators say the attack was intended as a message to the scores of migrant laborers who wait outside the store each morning to solicit work.

After a preliminary hearing last month, Municipal Judge Michael Burley dismissed a civil rights charge against the men. The case is being monitored by the FBI and U.S. Justice Department for possible further charges.

Tensions have continued to rise outside the store since the charges. Recently, North County migrant advocates charged that the Country Store has refused to allow some migrant workers to use public telephones outside the store, which they claim is illegal.

Judge Ronald S. Prager will preside over the trial, which will call several migrant laborers to testify about incidents outside the store, on a rural stretch of El Camino Real a few miles south of California 78.