VENTURA : El Rio Man, 23, Is Charged With Murder

An El Rio man was charged Wednesday with murder in the shooting death of his employer, El Rio businessman Robert Allen Foster.

Charles William Bothwell, 23, fatally shot Foster, 41, in Foster’s Starvation Center thrift store in Ventura about 10:40 p.m. Sunday, police said.

Bothwell surrendered when police arrived.

Foster died in the hospital about 2 a.m. Tuesday of a gunshot wound to the head.

At a court appearance Wednesday, Bothwell’s arraignment was postponed to Sept. 22. The public defender’s office was appointed to represent Bothwell, and Municipal Judge Bruce A. Clarke set Bothwell’s bail at $250,000, the standard amount for someone accused of murder.

A court bail officer said Bothwell, who was living with his two children in a building on Foster’s property in El Rio, had no criminal record and had been a resident of Ventura County for three years.

Prosecutor Peter D. Kossoris declined to comment on allegations by neighbors and employees that Foster had abused his workers and their children.

Mitzie LaPort, who works in an office next door to Foster’s auction house, said she had heard Foster verbally abusing his employees in the past.

Victor Hernandez, 27, of Oxnard said he worked for Foster three separate times over the past few years. Hernandez said he had once seen Foster beat one of his employees until the man’s face “looked like a tomato.”

Hernandez also said that Foster forced him to work up to 16 hours a day and paid him only $20 a day. And, Hernandez said, Foster threatened to kill him if he left or called the police.

“We were like slaves,” he said. “If we didn’t do what he said, he would get very mad.”