Some Drywallers Freed; Most Face Deportation : Labor: More than 50 strikers released on own recognizance, but at least 88 are refused bail at request of immigration officials.

More than 50 striking drywall workers who were arrested last week after storming a construction site have been released on their own recognizance, leaving nearly 100 others still in custody, many of them facing probable deportation.

Hearings on whether the 149 workers should be tried on trespassing charges begin Thursday.

The workers--all Mexican immigrants--walked off their jobs five weeks ago demanding a union and better wages than the $300 they say they average now for a 60-hour week for installing plasterboard on the frames of new homes.

All 149 of the strikers turned down a plea bargain Monday that would have let them go free in return for the five days they had already spent in jail.

The decision surprised prosecutors and even some defense lawyers.

But for one arrested striker, Pedro Segura, 37, the decision to turn down the plea agreement was very simple, he said Tuesday after being released.

“I don’t really believe I was guilty or at fault here,” he said. “I was protesting our poor pay, so why should I plead guilty to something?”

When the strikers refused to plead guilty, a Municipal Court judge set bail at what defense lawyers said was an unusually high amount of $10,000 each.

It looked as if all 149 men might be in jail until late July or early August awaiting a trial. But then two other judges lowered bail to $1,000 or $2,500 for a handful of men and released 53 others on their own recognizance in a series of hearings that began early Monday afternoon and continued into the night.

An exact count was still not available Tuesday, but court officials said at least an additional eight men were granted bail. Sheriff’s Department officials said most of those men had probably not yet been released from jail because they hadn’t been able to post the bail.

Of the 96 or so who remained in jail Tuesday, 88 were not granted bail because the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service says they’re illegal immigrants and that it will deport them when their cases are resolved.

Some defense lawyers contend that the legal system and the INS are being used to help builder contractors crush the strike. INS officials say they routinely screen bookings at the jail, which is how they found these 88 men.

At any rate, the courts Tuesday were left with what could become a logistical nightmare in sorting out the largest mass arrest in the county in recent memory.

“The costs will be tremendous,” said Carl C. Holmes, chief deputy public defender. “There’ll be many, many lawyers involved, many interpreters and many court days--unnecessarily so.”

Trial dates have been scheduled for July 28 and Aug. 4, with the men being tried 10 at a time.

Holmes said it’s likely each man will need his own lawyer. Prosecutors disagree.

The strikers, meanwhile, had to figure out how to turn all the attention into sympathy for their strike. That’s not an easy job since the strike has been marred by violence and vandalism for the last two weeks.

The mass arrests occurred Thursday morning after the men allegedly raced onto a Brighton Homes construction site in Mission Viejo and forced six non-striking drywall workers to come with them.

Deputies stopped the caravan of trucks and cars on a little-traveled stretch of Olympiad Road a few minutes later.

After a tense standoff, deputies arrested the strikers on suspicion of conspiracy to commit kidnaping, a felony. They were held over the holiday weekend on $50,000 bail each. Prosecutors then said Monday they didn’t have enough evidence to charge the men with kidnaping and reduced the charge to trespassing, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum $1,000 fine and a six-month jail sentence.

Public defenders, however, pointed out that many people who commit more serious misdemeanors are routinely issued a citation and released by police rather than spend five days or more in jail.

Replied Deputy Dist. Atty Wallace J. Wade: “We made what we thought was a fair offer, and they turned us down.”

Wade said an investigation continues and it’s possible that some of the men may be charged again with felonies. The Sheriff’s Department has a tape it made of a raid on a building site a day earlier “that shows the kind of activity the deputies had to deal with on Thursday,” Wade said.

Meanwhile the home builders’ trade group, the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California, broke more than a month’s silence on the strike. A spokesman said Tuesday that an informal poll of builders who came to a meeting on the strike showed they are adamantly opposed to being unionized.

That means prospects for a quick settlement remain dim. That’s because the home builders’ subcontractors are unlikely to sign union contracts if they think they can be underbid by non-union competitors.

Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this report.