Parents Back but Say Son Still Missing : Crime: The youth is sought over a racial brawl in Thousand Oaks. The couple had also mysteriously disappeared before his hearing.

The Lees are back in town.

Not their son James, who jumped bail before an April preliminary hearing on his role in an after-school racial brawl in Thousand Oaks. But his parents, who also mysteriously disappeared just before the preliminary hearing.

In a brief interview in the driveway of their million-dollar North Ranch compound, the Lees said they have no idea where their 16-year-old son is.

“We’re still looking for him,” said Hsin-E Lee, James’ father.

Lee said his son Frank is also missing, and he said he was “not sure” whether the two boys were in the United States. Both sons were involved in the February fight that left two Westlake High School students hospitalized with gunshot wounds.

There is a warrant out for their arrests, and Crimestoppers has offered $1,000 in reward money for tips leading to James Lee’s arrest. He was charged as an adult with assault with a deadly weapon and assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury.

Lee said he had received no letters from his sons, but refused to say whether he had received telephone calls from them. Lee would not say where he and his wife had been, or when they returned to the home they had left vacant.

Prosecutors speculated that the family had fled to their native Taiwan so that James would avoid prosecution.

Lee would not discuss the causes of the February fight that led to James’ arrest. “There’s different stories,” he said.

Police and witnesses said a one-on-one fistfight was expected between James Lee and a football player, who was his rival. Instead, police said, five carloads of youths arrived at the park and emerged wielding baseball bats, guns and 2x4s.

“We are the Asian Mafia,” they reportedly announced.

Lee said he had no plans to sell the house on Oak Grove Place in Thousand Oaks, which was purchased for $1.1 million in 1989. But he and his wife have been keeping a low profile since their return.

They have not been seen at church, said Curtis Lowe, pastor of the Chinese Christian Church of Thousand Oaks. And they have not contacted their son’s attorney.

The lawyer, Thomas A. Mesereau Jr., said he had a message for his client: “He should turn himself in.”

Prosecutors said they can do nothing to the Lees other than ask them where their son is. “They don’t even have to talk to us if they don’t want to,” said John Vanarelli, the deputy district attorney handling the case.

Meanwhile, prosecutors announced Wednesday that charges were being refiled against another youth, Oubansack (Andy) Sonethanouphet, who is accused of using a gun in the shooting. Lee is charged only with having used a bat or a board.

On Sept. 9, a Superior Court judge dismissed charges against Sonethanouphet, ruling that police had illegally obtained a confession from him. But prosecutors say they still believe they can convict Sonethanouphet in Juvenile Court. He had been charged as an adult.

Trial dates have also been set for the two remaining defendants, who will also be tried as adults. John Yi, a Thousand Oaks teen-ager charged with four felony counts for allegedly firing a gun during the melee, is scheduled to go to trial Dec. 5. William Huang, a Rowland Heights youth charged with aiding and abetting Sonethanouphet, has a January trial date.

Times staff writer Dwayne Bray contributed to this story.