Bizarre Kidnap Plot Is Foiled as Suspect Arrested : Crime: Undercover agents seize a Riverside man accused of targeting women for abductions.

Orange County sheriff’s undercover agents arrested a Riverside man Wednesday after foiling a bizarre kidnaping plot that targeted as many as half a dozen women in Orange, Riverside and Kern counties.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Bob Giles said 38-year-old Daniel A. Lesinski, a former Internal Revenue Service employee who once applied to become a deputy sheriff, was being held without bail in Orange County Jail on charges of kidnaping and solicitation for kidnaping.

Lesinski was arrested in a Stanton motel without incident after undercover agents posing as his accomplices “kidnaped” another agent who was wearing a wig and posing as the first victim in the scheme, deputies said.

In conversations he had with undercover agents, Lesinski allegedly said he planned to film his victims engaged in sexual acts and then use the film to persuade the women not to report the abductions to police, threatening to release the films to pornography distributors.

Although investigators were unable to establish a link between Lesinski and the intended victims, deputies said he told undercover agents that the abductions were in retaliation for a business deal that had gone sour and had cost him money.

Lesinski, who has no criminal record, worked briefly for the IRS in El Monte in 1984 and 1985 and at some point applied to become a deputy sheriff in Sacramento County, deputies said.

Authorities were first tipped to the plot by female street informants in Stanton who said that a man had stopped his car one day and tried to hire them to assist in a series of kidnapings.

The informants told the man that they did not want to get involved but knew some other women who might help him. They then introduced Lesinski to female undercover agents with the Sheriff’s Department, deputies said.

As many as 14 deputies, assisted by a Sheriff’s Department helicopter, worked on the investigation and surveillance that led to Lesinski’s arrest Wednesday morning.

A search of Lesinski’s home in Riverside on Wednesday afternoon turned up a pistol and police equipment, including a baton, deputies said. In Lesinski’s car, investigators found several bags of supplies, including duct tape, rope and locks.

“He was well prepared,” Sgt. Giles said. “He was a meticulous planner.”

Investigator Gary W. Jones said that at one point Lesinski had planned to kidnap three women and hold them captive in a Stanton motel until their husbands came up with the ransom--at least $30,000 each. One of the targets of the plot lives in Huntington Beach and another lives in Fullerton. Investigators declined to give their names and said the name and location of the third intended victim was not known.

Lesinski allegedly told undercover deputies that the third victim “would be worth a lot more money, approximately $3 million.” The deputies, who were to pose as toy saleswomen or employees of a flower shop, were promised a 5% cut of the ransom for helping him abduct the women after their husbands left for work.

Once inside the homes, Lesinski told the undercover agents, they were to steal jewelry, credit cards and microwave ovens, authorities said. They were also instructed to take automated teller machine cards that would be used later for operating cash.

On Monday, Jones said, Lesinski dropped his plan to kidnap three women and decided instead to only “do the Fullerton kidnap, and if that went smooth, he had two more to do in Riverside, one in Palm Springs and possibly two more in Bakersfield.”

Early Wednesday, Lesinski and the undercover agents met for a final briefing on the planned Fullerton kidnaping, authorities said, and Lesinski gave the deputies shirts and hats with large sunglasses and told them to go to the home and kidnap the woman.

The agents instead “kidnaped” a male sheriff’s deputy posing as the intended target.

The plan called for them to take the victim to a Stanton motel, where they would meet Lesinski later, authorities said. Sheriff’s deputies arrested Lesinski at a nearby motel where he had another room.