Couple Are Robbed of $100,000 in Cash, Jewels

A group of gun-toting thieves burst into an Encino Hills home, took a jeweler and his wife hostage and drove them to their jewelry store, which the thieves then robbed, police said Thursday.

During the two-hour Wednesday night incident, the robbers took cash and property valued at more than $100,000, then dumped the couple, bound and gagged, in an alley in Sherman Oaks.

“This was planned,” said Los Angeles Police Det. Robert Joe Hansen. The robbers “told the victim that they had been following him for three to four weeks.”

The invasion began when a woman came to the couple’s home, said she was having a problem and asked to use the telephone, Hansen said.

The jeweler’s wife handed a portable phone to the woman, then closed the front door.

Seconds later, the door flew open with enough force to knock the startled victim to the floor, according to Hansen.

An unidentified man and the woman who had appealed for help burst inside, punched and kicked the victim, and dragged her into another room where they bound her wrists, placed duct tape over her mouth and forced her to lie on the floor, police said.

Two other men, brandishing guns and wearing ski masks, overpowered her husband, who had pulled up in his car to the garage of the white, single-story home. The intruders taped his mouth and bound his hands, then hustled the couple into separate cars, one of which was the couple’s Ford Explorer.

After stopping briefly at a park to consult with other suspects, two of the robbers took the jeweler to his store, Nazareth’s Jewelers on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana, where he was forced to disable the alarm and unlock the display cases and the safe, police said.

Meanwhile, the other two robbers drove the wife back home, where they ransacked the house and took jewelry, money and at least two guns.

In the end, the intruders put both victims back in the cars and dumped them in an alley in Sherman Oaks, then fled with the couple’s Ford Explorer.

The ordeal lasted two hours, police said.

“I feel terrible that it happened to them,” said neighbor Bonnie Lagerstrom. “They had gotten married recently and were busy remodeling their house.”

“This is a really safe area,” said another woman who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years. The thieves “must have known the man had a jewelry store.”

Police have made no arrests in the incident. At the home, a spokeswoman for the couple declined to comment.