4 Indicted in Robberies That Involved Hostage-Taking

A federal grand jury indicted four Santa Clarita men Thursday for allegedly holding bank officers and their families hostage overnight and forcing them to open their banks’ vaults under threats to their safety.

Alex Yepes, 25, of Valencia and brothers Chad Pelch, 23, of Saugus and Brett Pelch, 25, of Valencia were named as defendants in one of two indictments returned by a federal grand jury alleging conspiracy, armed bank robbery with forced accompaniment and use of a firearm during a crime of violence.

The charges carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. They stem from the June 11, 1993, robbery of TransWorld Bank in Canyon Country in which bank officer Toula Demosthenous and eight others were held overnight by gunmen at Demosthenous’ Canyon Country home.

A similar but separate indictment charges Yepes, Brett Pelch and Donald Sallee, 26, of Santa Clarita in the Sept. 17 robbery of a Coast Federal Bank branch in Northridge. Before that robbery, a group of gunmen invaded the Canoga Park home of bank officer Terry Duranso and held her and four others, including twin baby boys, hostage overnight.

In both robberies, gunmen accompanied each of the women to their banks and forced them to open vaults under threats to their own and their families’ safety. Nobody was injured.

The robbers stole $107,689 from TransWorld and $107,449 from Coast Federal, according to court documents.

Authorities arrested Yepes and Chad Pelch on Feb. 5 in Las Vegas. The two men are scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 28. Meanwhile, authorities are searching for fugitives Sallee and Brett Pelch.

Federal agents previously arrested Darren Patrick Towers, 25, of Saugus in December as a suspect in both robberies after he confessed to an FBI agent that he had been recruited by a friend to commit a bank robbery that involved taking hostages, authorities said.

Towers pleaded guilty to the same three counts facing Yepes, Sallee and the Pelch brothers.