Jury Convicts Migrant’s Taunter : Courts: But lack of a felony conviction and acquittal of a second defendant leave migrant advocates worried that the decision might encourage vigilantism.

A Country Store worker was convicted of misdemeanor false imprisonment Monday for tying a migrant worker with duct tape and fastening a paper bag over his head outside the rural Carlsbad market.

But a Vista Superior Court jury acquitted Randy Alfred Ryberg on a felony count of using force, finding that Ryberg didn’t menace or commit violence against Candido Gayosso Salas when he taped the worker’s arms and legs and escorted him off the property.

Ryberg faces a one-year maximum jail sentence and a $1,000 fine as a result of the case that has come to symbolize the growing tensions between businessmen and migrant farm laborers throughout the North County. Sentencing is scheduled for July 11.

After three days of sometimes angry deliberations, the six-man, six-woman jury also acquitted William Zimmerman, the store butcher, of any charges in connection with the Jan. 3 incident.

Deputy Dist. Atty. George McFetridge, who prosecuted the case, said he was not disappointed by the verdict, which he said justly served the rights of migrant workers in the area.

“What this shows is that an all-white jury of American citizens will extend to a migrant worker equal protection under the law,” McFetridge said shortly after the verdict was announced. “We can accomplish what we need to accomplish with a misdemeanor conviction on Randy Ryberg. If both men had been found not guilty on both counts, it would have been a very serious matter.”

Both Ryberg and Zimmerman stared straight ahead and without expression as the clerk read the verdict. Afterward, they briefly put their arms around one another. As he walked away from the courtroom, Zimmerman deadpanned, “I’m going to Disneyland!”

Migrant advocates said Monday they were both disappointed and angered by the decision, which they claimed would add to the “rise in vigilantism” against migrant laborers in North County.

“I’m shocked and disappointed,” said Roberto Martinez, a spokesman for the American Friends Services Committee. “The total act was a violent act. We still maintain that his civil rights were violated.”

Claudia Smith, a lawyer for the California Rural Legal Assistance, said the men’s actions clearly warranted a felony conviction. “The jury’s reasoning that there was no menace is poppycock.

“This whole thing is reflective of a growing and very dangerous attitude in the North County, that if you do it to a migrant, it doesn’t count.”

The FBI is conducting its own investigation into the incident and has said it will forward results of the case to the Justice Department for possible civil rights charges. A spokesman, however, could not be contacted late Monday.

Gayosso has also filed a civil suit against Ryberg and Zimmerman, claiming that his civil rights were violated.

The case revolved around an incident in which Ryberg grabbed the 27-year-old undocumented laborer as he solicited day work in the parking lot outside the rural market, known to migrant workers as the “Little Chicken” for the large fiberglass rooster that perches on its roof.

Along with Zimmerman’s help, Ryberg dragged the migrant to the back of the store, where he was handcuffed to a stair railing. Two hours later, Ryberg and Zimmerman emerged from the store and removed the handcuffs. They then used silver duct tape to bind Gayosso at the wrists and knees, the worker testified.

Ryberg also fastened a bag over Gayosso’s head bearing a clown’s face and the phrase “No Mas Aqui,” Spanish for “no more here,” before he led Gayosso to a nearby field.

Jury foreman Gary Lawing, a 45-year La Costa resident, said the panel took several days sorting out the complex legal issues of trespassing, menace and the use of force and was deadlocked on the fate of Randy Ryberg until the last moments of deliberation.

At first, Lawing said, the cloud of the North County migrant situation hung over the jurors’ discussions as various jurors spoke out about either their sympathies with the store owners or with the migrant laborers and their squalid living conditions in hidden, makeshift camps.

Eventually, he said, the jury was able to put aside the tense atmosphere of relations between migrants and the business community and make their decision solely on the judge’s instructions and the merits of the case.

“There was a lot of yelling back and forth and claims of someone being biased,” he said. And, in the end, people began to see that they had been biased at first. And some admitted it.”

Attorneys on both sides acknowledged that the jury deliberated for much longer than they had expected.

“But I’m very pleased with their outcome,” said Robert James, Zimmerman’s attorney. “Sometimes people will come back after an hour or so with an answer, and you wonder how much they really thought about the issue.

“But this jury deliberated, deliberated and re-deliberated. Even if they had come back with a guilty verdict for my client, you couldn’t fault them for their intensity.”

Last Wednesday, during their first full day in seclusion, the jury had decided that Zimmerman was not guilty of a felony for his role in the incident. They spent the next two days deciding whether Ryberg’s actions constituted a felony or misdemeanor and whether Zimmerman should be acquitted.

A break in the deliberations came Monday morning after one woman juror announced that, “after doing some soul searching” over the weekend, she had reversed her position, now believing that Randy Ryberg was guilty of some crime after first saying he should go free, Lawing said.

“She was a pretty quiet person all along, so the fact that she stood up created an environment that made it possible for a lot of people to take another look at their feelings.”

In the end, the jury decided that Ryberg and Zimmerman were within their rights to handcuff Gayosso in the course of making a citizen’s arrest. However, they felt Randy Ryberg “crossed over the line,” when he taped Gayosso, placed the bag over his head and forced him from the property.

They said Zimmerman’s role of helping Ryberg bind Gayosso’s legs with duct tape, however, did not constitute a crime.

“A lot of people said, ‘I’m convinced that (Ryberg) committed a crime but they weren’t sure how serious it was,’ ” Lawing said. “That’s what we finally figured out.”