LOS ANGELES : $10,000 Reward Offered for Clues to Celes King Assault

The City Council has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attackers who severely beat Celes King III, a bail bondsman and prominent civil rights activist.

King, 70, was kidnaped, robbed and assaulted, then released on Ardmore Avenue near Wilshire Boulevard in Koreatown before dawn on April 21.

“The Los Angeles Police Department has not identified a suspect in this case, and no further leads appear to be forthcoming,” Councilman Nate Holden’s motion said.

King, a longtime Republican activist, served previously as president of the Los Angeles Human Relations Commission and the local chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. He suffered severe head injuries and other wounds in the attack.

The council also offered a $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a hit-and-run driver who killed Marcy Lewis, 27, in a Hancock Park collision March 2.

Lewis died and her husband was critically injured when a van broadsided the newlyweds’ car, sending it crashing up a sidewalk and into a tree. Witnesses said the van was traveling about 65 m.p.h. and ran a stop sign. The van’s driver and passengers abandoned the vehicle after the accident and fled.