Charges Traded on Kidnap Scenario : Crime: Lawyer for a suspect in the abduction of Santa Barbara area youth hints that victim may have been part of scheme. Young man’s family decries the ‘vicious rumors.’

Teenager Ryan Curtis, apparently abducted Sept. 13 by three of his neighbors in a wealthy, ocean-view enclave, was not the victim of “a classic kidnaping for ransom,” the attorney for one of the suspects said Sunday.

But a Curtis family spokesman said any suggestion that the youth participated in his own abduction is “a flat-out lie.”

Curtis--freed Saturday in an FBI raid on an estate near his home--was not harmed and may not have been restrained, said Michael Carty, attorney for Eric Alden Panizzon, 24. Other sources familiar with the case said, however, that the kidnaped 19-year-old was held captive while the abductors sought $800,000 ransom from his family.

Curtis and the accused kidnapers lived within a mile of each other in the exclusive Hope Ranch area of Santa Barbara. The victim could have known his abductors and been stalked by them, sources said.

Curtis graduated from high school in June and was scheduled to begin his freshman year at UC Santa Barbara last week. He had been working out with the UCSB water polo team.

An FBI SWAT team rescued the victim after raiding an estate on Via Bendita where Panizzon and another suspect, Jeffrey Real Locas, 21, lived. Both men were arrested on kidnaping charges.

A third suspect is being sought. He was not identified but sources said he is about the same age as the two men arrested and also lived on the two-acre property.

The 3,700-square-foot, two-story home belongs to Panizzon’s parents. Ann Panizzon is director of the Center for Law-Related Education, a nonprofit organization devoted to keeping wayward youth out of jail. Her husband, Ernest, is a prominent Santa Barbara attorney. Ann Panizzon lived at the home but she and Ernest apparently are separated, neighbors said.

Carty said there is no suggestion that Ann Panizzon had any role in the kidnaping.

Hope Ranch is roughly four square miles of $1-million homes between U.S. 101 and the Pacific Ocean, in an unincorporated area just west of Santa Barbara. The narrow lanes are patrolled by 24-hour security teams. The lots are a minimum of one acre with most larger. The estates feature showplace gardens and dozens of horse trails. Many have spectacular views of the Channel Islands.

An avocado grove and empty horse corral protect the glass-walled Panizzon home from sightseers. Neighboring homes include that of H. R. (Bob) Haldeman, former White House chief of staff for President Richard M. Nixon, and the estate of Frederick W. (Ted) Field, a Hollywood entertainment figure and an heir to the Marshall Field department store fortune.

Curtis, the son of an Orange County insurance executive, was kidnaped as he left his girlfriend’s home in nearby Goleta, authorities said.

When Eric Panizzon contacted the Curtis family from a gas station telephone booth early Saturday, FBI agents were at a command post barely a block away, other sources said. Panizzon was captured after a short chase on foot.

The sources said an FBI SWAT team raced to the Hope Ranch estate as soon as agents confirmed Panizzon’s address. They found Curtis in an upstairs bedroom, “lying on a bed but not tied to it,” sources said.

“Ryan is OK. He just wants to get some rest,” said a man who answered the phone at the Curtis home Sunday.

Neighbors of Ryan’s parents, William and Renee Curtis, said the family moved to Hope Ranch about two years ago.

“These are really straight people,” said neighbor Adrian Vance. “For anyone to think they had $800,000, that’s pretty unbelievable.”

A family spokesperson said the kidnap victim is “gratified that both principal police agencies confirm that he is not in any way involved in his own abduction.”

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Carty, Eric Panizzon’s attorney, said: “It’s clear this is not a true kidnaping-for-ransom situation.”

Asked if he believed that the victim played a role in the abduction, Carty said: “That’s one of the things we really have to find out. It is clear from what we know about the moments police first made contact with the alleged victim that he was not restrained and he didn’t appear to be harmed in any way.”

But a spokesperson for Curtis said: “He’s been through enough trauma already without vicious and false rumors being floated around.”

Gorman is a Times staff writer. Heller is a correspondent for The Times. Staff writer Tracy Wood contributed to this story in Los Angeles.