Kidnaping Suspect Told to Stand Trial : Courts: He says he loves woman, 98, and that she asked him to take her away from Mission Viejo home.

A 36-year-old man accused of kidnaping the 98-year-old woman he says he loves, has been ordered to stand trial beginning Dec. 8.

Rory Paul Rael of West Hollywood is accused of kidnaping Edna Mohi from a Mission Viejo nursing home for 13 days on Aug. 27.

Rael and Mohi lived together for five years in a West Hollywood apartment. Rael claims they were in love, and that when she was moved to a convalescent home she asked him to take her away. Mohi’s family claims Rael only wants the elderly woman’s $250,000 estate and that she is not competent to consent to going anywhere.

Among the evidence presented at this week’s preliminary hearing in Municipal Court in Laguna Niguel was a videotape of Mohi attempting, with great difficulty, to answer simple questions aimed at demonstrating an awareness of reality.

Rael, who had been free on $25,000 bail, was taken back into custody Wednesday after his bail was increased to $100,000.

“I think this is the first step to seeing that justice is done,” said Randy Williams, Mohi’s great-nephew and legal conservator. Mohi suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, he said.

Daniel Dembicer, an attorney for Rael, disagreed, saying he was “real surprised that it was held over for trial, because the evidence clearly showed that there was no force.”

According to Williams, Mohi has since been returned to the board-and-care home.