Teen Describes Her Captors in Kidnap-Robbery

A teenage girl testified Thursday how lunch at a friend’s house turned into hours of terror when several masked men bound them with duct tape and held them at gunpoint until the friend’s mother opened the vault at a bank she managed.

In San Fernando Superior Court, Tina Haddad, 19, identified Alex Yepes, 27, as the alleged captor who Haddad said she got the best glimpse of through a stocking mask he wore.

She also described physical characteristics of others--one who she said was “built” and “bossy,” another who had “thin lips” and another with “small green eyes.”

Haddad admitted under cross-examination that she and six of her friends initially told the FBI they had been blindfolded and had not seen their captors. She said they all agreed to say they could not recognize the men because they had been afraid.

Haddad was the first witness in a three-month trial for Yepes and brothers Brett and Chad Pelch, the 28- and 25-year-old sons of LAPD Sgt. Dennis Pelch.

The defendants, friends since boyhood, are charged with three dozen robbery, kidnapping and weapons offenses in connection with the June 10, 1993, armed bank robbery that began as a home invasion in Canyon Country.

Yepes and Brett Pelch are also accused of robbing a bank in Northridge after holding the manager, her infant twins and their nanny at gunpoint in their Canoga Park home on Sept. 16, 1993.

The amount taken from the two bank robberies totaled about $215,000.

In her opening statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. Susan Chasworth alleged that Yepes and Brett Pelch headed a highly sophisticated crime ring that broke into the homes of bank employees, took hostages overnight, forced the employees to open the vaults early the next morning, then spray-painted bank video cameras. They sometimes cheated accomplices and spent lavishly, Chasworth said.

The prosecutor described Yepes as the “mastermind,” Brett Pelch as the “enforcer” and Chad Pelch as a “weak link” considered so “stupid” by the others that he was not asked to participate in the second bank robbery.

At the center of the case is Darren Patrick Towers, a former insider who turned informant. Defense attorneys have launched a vigorous attack against Towers’ credibility.

The fiercely litigated case already has brought a flurry of misconduct allegations as well as mutual charges that the statements of various witnesses have been coerced.

The trial promises to be so contentious that Judge Charles Peven already has cautioned the lawyers against making it “a spitting contest” that would reinforce what he called the public’s already low opinion of lawyers.

One defense lawyer called Towers “an opportunistic liar” while another labeled him “walking reasonable doubt.”

Yepes’ lawyer, Gerald V. Scotti, told jurors that in the 10 statements he has given, Towers has told “10 different stories.”

*

Yepes was acquitted of federal bank robbery charges, then was quickly charged with violations of state law, despite protestations of double jeopardy. Again, he will employ an alibi defense, his lawyer said.

Scotti claims Yepes can prove he was at a Jethro Tull concert when one of the home invasions occurred, alleging instead that Towers was responsible and is fingering Yepes to protect himself.

Also, Scotti said, by September Yepes had been under constant FBI surveillance. If he had committed the Sept. 17 home invasion and bank robbery, Scotti asked, would not the FBI have caught him?

The evidence will include tales of life on the lam and lavish spending sprees.

Chasworth, the prosecutor, said Yepes, Brett Pelch and Towers first went to a Club Med in Cancun, Mexico, after the first robbery, but left for Las Vegas when the weather became bad. The defendants bought new cars and trucks and other luxuries, she said.

Before that, Brett Pelch was on the brink of bankruptcy, living off his five credit cards that were “maxed out,” Chasworth said. He was arrested in Pacific Grove, near Monterey, after being on the run for 18 months.

During his flight, which was featured on “America’s Most Wanted,” he was filmed running through a casino with law enforcement officials on his heels, and lived in San Diego under a false identity. His police officer father was suspended 33 days without pay for assisting him during his flight.

At the time of his arrest, police found handcuffs, a loaded gun and false identification cards in his BMW. Entries in several notebooks indicated that if apprehended, he planned to accuse the FBI of falsifying evidence against him and would appeal to jurors by presenting evidence of “the psychological pain of being a fugitive,” Chasworth said.

Chad Pelch’s lawyer told jurors the source of her client’s new-found wealth was not crime. Instead, Deputy Public Defender Rose Reglos told jurors, Chad got lucky in Las Vegas.

A fifth suspect, Donald Salle, remains at large.