Freeway Traffic Halts as Suspect in Threats Is Arrested
California Highway Patrol officers stopped traffic on the southbound Costa Mesa Freeway for 10 minutes Thursday while Orange County Sheriff’s deputies arrested a man suspected of making terrorist threats against his former girlfriend and a judge.
“They’d been looking for this guy full time for 2 1/2 weeks,” said Lt. Rich Paddock, a sheriff’s spokesman.
James Pigneri, a 38-year-old transient, was arrested about 8:30 p.m. when deputies, aided by a helicopter, pulled over the 1989 Nissan pickup in which he was traveling south just north of MacArthur Boulevard in Santa Ana. Police also arrested Robert T. Navarro, 32, on suspicion of aiding and abetting Pigneri. Investigators did not say which man was driving.
Several places that Pigneri frequented had been under police surveillance since he made the threats against his former girlfriend, whom police would not identify, and an Orange County Superior Court judge, Paddock said.
Pigneri was taken to Orange County Jail and booked on suspicion of making terrorist threats.
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