3 Men Tied to Restaurant Owner Death

The fatal shooting last June of a downtown restaurant owner stemmed from a bungled kidnapping attempt arranged by the owner of a local card club, police said Thursday.

Two men have been arrested in the June 13 slaying of Felipe Arambula at his home in the upscale Clearpoint neighborhood, police announced at a press conference. A third is being sought.

Detectives sketched out a complex investigation that involved a dozen police agencies, a sting choreographed by the U.S. Department of Justice, and a rolling surveillance that took four unmarked Ventura patrol cars more than 200 miles to the Mexican border.

Officers were tight-lipped about the precise motive behind the alleged abduction scheme, but they emphasized that Arambula was not a mere target of opportunity.

“This was not a random home-invasion robbery,” said Sgt. Bob Anderson, the department’s major crimes supervisor. The two men waiting in Arambula’s home with his terror-stricken wife and their two children had come specifically for him, Anderson said.

The plot’s mastermind was identified as Jose Alberto Vazquez, 37, co-owner of the Player’s Poker Club on Ventura Avenue. Vazquez, who lives in the Spanish Hills area of Camarillo, was arrested Wednesday night as he and his wife Monica crossed the Mexican border back into the United States after a vacation.

Monica Vazquez had inherited the card room and a property in Ventura from Henry “Pinky” Donohoo, her late husband. She knew Arambula and had either loaned or given him money, Anderson said.

“We believe that at some time or another he got some of her assets in some fashion--loans, grants, donations, whatever,” Anderson said in an interview.

Police said Jose Vazquez, who apparently was not at the Arambula house that night, plotted the kidnapping at least a year ago. They said he hired two young men to abduct the owner of the popular Taqueria Vallarta. Officers said they did not know where Arambula was to be taken or whether a ransom demand was to be made.

According to police, the two arrived at the Arambula home on Monte Vista Avenue in time to confront Felipe as he returned from work.

After a “particularly violent” fight that lurched from room to room, one of the intruders shot Arambula several times and the pair fled, authorities said.

Police were led to the two suspects by “significant physical evidence” at the house, Anderson said.

“We’re not talking about two sophisticated hit men out of the Cosa Nostra,” Anderson said.

The gunman was identified as William David Hampton Jr., 19, of Casitas Springs.

Police said Hampton fled to Texas and was arrested Aug. 11 at a home about 25 miles from San Antonio. He since has been extradited and is in custody at the Ventura County Jail.

The other man identified by police is Manuel Alejandro Vasquez, 20, of Santa Paula, who is not related to the Vazquezes. He is still at large.

Police said Vasquez had helped to remodel the poker club’s kitchen last year. After he was recruited for the kidnapping, he tapped Hampton to help him, according to police.

Police did not disclose how much money the pair may have been promised for their work.

Officers had been looking for Jose and Monica Vazquez for some time. They had even arranged with the U.S. Department of Justice to concoct a phony meeting about gambling regulations, which was supposedly to take place today in the City of Commerce.

“We knew they’d appear at this meeting,” Anderson said, adding that word of it had been sent to the Player’s Poker Club.

On Wednesday, police received a tip that Jose and Monica Vazquez may have already returned to Camarillo. But it was not them; two unmarked cars followed a couple later identified as friends of the Vazquezes onto the Ventura Freeway and then onto the San Diego Freeway.

Those detectives were joined by two others who had been at Los Angeles International Airport laying plans for the couple’s possible return there. Taking turns, the four cars tailed the couple to the border crossing at San Ysidro.

When they arrived, however, they received word that Border Patrol agents had detained Jose and Monica Vazquez just 45 minutes earlier at the nearby Otay Mesa crossing. The officers scrambled there to make the arrest.

At the card club on Thursday, news of Vazquez’s arrest had already spread.

“It was totally a surprise to me,” said manager Bill Kracht, a club employee for 14 years.

Vazquez had been a construction foreman, and after marrying Monica, helped upgrade the aging card room with new carpet, a paint job and a remodeled kitchen.

“I really knew very little about him,” Kracht said. “He was always very nice and very friendly to me.”

Monica and Jose Vazquez were wed about a year ago in Las Vegas, according to Rob Mason, a floor manager at the Ash Street Card Club and a former nine-year employee of the Player’s Poker Club.

He said the two had dated each other in Mexico before her first marriage, and had renewed their relationship after Donohoo’s death.

Monica’s marriage to Donohoo had lasted from 1986 until his death from throat cancer in 1996. A colorful former professional gambler, Donohoo was 54 years older than his wife.

In 1993, the Ventura City Council revised its gambling ordinance to allow Monica to run the club for 10 years after Donohoo’s death.

Club employees on Thursday said Monica and Jose Vazquez would check in on the club together a couple of times a month. No one knew of any connection Arambula may have had with the club, although police said he may have visited it a few times.

At the Vazquez home in a gated community beside the golf course at Spanish Hills, a distraught Monica Vazquez declined comment. A couple of friends were on hand to help her out.

“She’s in total shock,” one of them said.

Neighbors knew little of the couple, who have lived in their new two-story home for a little more than a year. One woman said the couple had twice run afoul of the homeowners association: once by installing a noncomplying green patio roof and the other time by hanging bedsheets in the windows before acquiring drapes.

“He thought that everybody disliked him because they’re Spanish, but it was because they weren’t following” the rules, a neighbor said.

Police said the investigation into Arambula’s slaying is continuing.

Times Community News reporter Holly Wolcott contributed to this story.

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Slaying Suspects

Two men have been arresed and one is being sought in the June killing of restaurant owner Felilpe Arambula.

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Jose Alberto Vazquez: Alleged mastermind of kidnapping plot has been arrested.

William David Hampton Jr.: Suspected gunman is also in custody.

Manuel Alejandro Vasquez: Allegedly hired as kidnapper, he remains at large.

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The Victim

Felipe Arambula, owner of the popular Taqueria Vallarta in Ventura, was killed at his home in the upscale Clearpoint neighborhood. Police now say it was not random attack but a kidnapping plot.