Post by Surfer in the know on Jul 13, 2003 10:37:44 GMT -5
U.S. bounty hunter on Mexico's wanted list
Illegal 'arrest' of fugitive serial rapist, not returning for court date draws fire
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By Hugh Dellios
Special To The Sun
Originally published July 13, 2003
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico - Under any other circumstances, the residents of this beach town would have been just plain happy to have Andrew Luster off the streets.
In his last five days of freedom, the heir to the Max Factor fortune and fugitive serial rapist was living in a motel that rents by the hour next to the local office of the Mexican version of the FBI. Nights would find him in the flashy clubs, consorting with lots of young women.
But when a U.S. bounty hunter tackled Luster last month in front of a taco stand near the waterfront, the capture created its own brouhaha over vigilantism, national sovereignty and neighborly relations. Bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico, and the bounty hunter was charged with kidnapping.
Insult followed injury Monday when Hawaii-based bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman, failed to appear in Puerto Vallarta as required under his bail conditions. He became a fugitive despite turning up in Los Angeles, where he insisted to the television cameras that he was on the side of law and order.
"This might be good for a TV script but not for reality," said Marco Roberto Juarez, a state prosecutor in Puerto Vallarta who wants to slap Chapman with organized-crime charges and is preparing to ask for his extradition.
"We are going to make this a precedent to show that you can't just come here and do this kind of thing with impunity," Juarez said. "I could never do this in the U.S., and they can't do it here."
Chapman is far from the first bounty hunter, or bail enforcement agent, to get himself into trouble in Mexico, where only police have the authority to make an arrest.
U.S. consular officials say it's difficult to know how many bounty hunters are in Mexican jails. But Peter Hilton, a veteran private investigator who teaches classes in legal liability for the California Bail Agents Association, said he knows of up to 12 from California who have been caught in the past 10 years.
"Usually, they are just greenhorns who are untrained and uncertified kids, and some bail bondsmen has sent them down there saying, 'No problem,'" said Bob Burton, director of the National Institute of Bail Enforcement in Tucson, Ariz. "Once we put our hands on a guy down there, we're kidnapping."
Bounty hunters in the United States have condemned how Chapman apprehended Luster. They said that there are many legal methods to seek the extradition of a fugitive and that it involves patience, paperwork and phones rather than force.
"I would never conduct an investigation down there nor tackle somebody," said Hilton, who said he has helped bring back 11 fugitives from Mexico.
Juarez, the Puerto Vallarta prosecutor, said that Mexican officials would have cooperated with U.S. officials in returning Luster but that local authorities were never given any information about him.
Luster, 39, had been on the run since January, when he was being tried in California on charges of drugging and raping three women, some of the attacks captured on videotape. Luster, whose cosmetics family had posted $1 million bond, fled during a break in the trial. He was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 124 years in prison.
Mexican officials believe that he had been living in Guadalajara, posing as an investor in the expatriate community. They believe he made more than one trip to Puerto Vallarta, where he would drive search for isolated beaches where he could surf.
FBI officials said they were closing in on Luster after receiving a tip from a Washington couple who had met him in Mexico and later saw his face on a television crime program. But the couple also tipped off Chapman.
Chapman, 50, is "the greatest bounty hunter in the world," according to his Web site. He told reporters in January that Luster was on the top of his personal "wanted" list.
Luster told Mexican police he spent the night of June 17 at a popular disco in downtown Puerto Vallarta and then stopped at the corner taco stand just before 5 a.m. on his way home.
Suddenly, two vehicles pulled up and out jumped Chapman, who allegedly threatened Luster with a can of tear gas and yelled, "You're under arrest!" Then, with the help of his brother and son, he reportedly wrestled Luster to the pavement, slapped handcuffs on him, stuffed him in one of the vehicles and sped off. He brought along a two-man film crew who videotaped the incident.
Martin Carlos Garcia, 41, an all-night bar owner, saw the capture and raced off to find police.
"I said to the police, 'Can the DEA or FBI make arrests alone in Mexico?' They said 'no,' so I said, 'Well, then I just saw an illegal detention,'" Garcia said.
The police stopped Chapman's vehicles near the airport and arrested everyone.
Luster was extradited to a California prison. Chapman and his two relatives were charged in Mexico with "deprivation of liberty," which carries a maximum sentence of four years in jail; they slipped out of the country after each posted $1,430 bail.
Back in the United States, Chapman said he would be returning to Mexico "soon." But on Monday, the day he was to appear in court in Puerto Vallarta, he instead appeared at a Ventura County, Calif., hearing to make his case for why he deserved a piece of Luster's $1 million bail money as his bounty.
Hugh Dellios is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.
Illegal 'arrest' of fugitive serial rapist, not returning for court date draws fire
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Hugh Dellios
Special To The Sun
Originally published July 13, 2003
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico - Under any other circumstances, the residents of this beach town would have been just plain happy to have Andrew Luster off the streets.
In his last five days of freedom, the heir to the Max Factor fortune and fugitive serial rapist was living in a motel that rents by the hour next to the local office of the Mexican version of the FBI. Nights would find him in the flashy clubs, consorting with lots of young women.
But when a U.S. bounty hunter tackled Luster last month in front of a taco stand near the waterfront, the capture created its own brouhaha over vigilantism, national sovereignty and neighborly relations. Bounty hunting is illegal in Mexico, and the bounty hunter was charged with kidnapping.
Insult followed injury Monday when Hawaii-based bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman, failed to appear in Puerto Vallarta as required under his bail conditions. He became a fugitive despite turning up in Los Angeles, where he insisted to the television cameras that he was on the side of law and order.
"This might be good for a TV script but not for reality," said Marco Roberto Juarez, a state prosecutor in Puerto Vallarta who wants to slap Chapman with organized-crime charges and is preparing to ask for his extradition.
"We are going to make this a precedent to show that you can't just come here and do this kind of thing with impunity," Juarez said. "I could never do this in the U.S., and they can't do it here."
Chapman is far from the first bounty hunter, or bail enforcement agent, to get himself into trouble in Mexico, where only police have the authority to make an arrest.
U.S. consular officials say it's difficult to know how many bounty hunters are in Mexican jails. But Peter Hilton, a veteran private investigator who teaches classes in legal liability for the California Bail Agents Association, said he knows of up to 12 from California who have been caught in the past 10 years.
"Usually, they are just greenhorns who are untrained and uncertified kids, and some bail bondsmen has sent them down there saying, 'No problem,'" said Bob Burton, director of the National Institute of Bail Enforcement in Tucson, Ariz. "Once we put our hands on a guy down there, we're kidnapping."
Bounty hunters in the United States have condemned how Chapman apprehended Luster. They said that there are many legal methods to seek the extradition of a fugitive and that it involves patience, paperwork and phones rather than force.
"I would never conduct an investigation down there nor tackle somebody," said Hilton, who said he has helped bring back 11 fugitives from Mexico.
Juarez, the Puerto Vallarta prosecutor, said that Mexican officials would have cooperated with U.S. officials in returning Luster but that local authorities were never given any information about him.
Luster, 39, had been on the run since January, when he was being tried in California on charges of drugging and raping three women, some of the attacks captured on videotape. Luster, whose cosmetics family had posted $1 million bond, fled during a break in the trial. He was convicted in absentia and sentenced to 124 years in prison.
Mexican officials believe that he had been living in Guadalajara, posing as an investor in the expatriate community. They believe he made more than one trip to Puerto Vallarta, where he would drive search for isolated beaches where he could surf.
FBI officials said they were closing in on Luster after receiving a tip from a Washington couple who had met him in Mexico and later saw his face on a television crime program. But the couple also tipped off Chapman.
Chapman, 50, is "the greatest bounty hunter in the world," according to his Web site. He told reporters in January that Luster was on the top of his personal "wanted" list.
Luster told Mexican police he spent the night of June 17 at a popular disco in downtown Puerto Vallarta and then stopped at the corner taco stand just before 5 a.m. on his way home.
Suddenly, two vehicles pulled up and out jumped Chapman, who allegedly threatened Luster with a can of tear gas and yelled, "You're under arrest!" Then, with the help of his brother and son, he reportedly wrestled Luster to the pavement, slapped handcuffs on him, stuffed him in one of the vehicles and sped off. He brought along a two-man film crew who videotaped the incident.
Martin Carlos Garcia, 41, an all-night bar owner, saw the capture and raced off to find police.
"I said to the police, 'Can the DEA or FBI make arrests alone in Mexico?' They said 'no,' so I said, 'Well, then I just saw an illegal detention,'" Garcia said.
The police stopped Chapman's vehicles near the airport and arrested everyone.
Luster was extradited to a California prison. Chapman and his two relatives were charged in Mexico with "deprivation of liberty," which carries a maximum sentence of four years in jail; they slipped out of the country after each posted $1,430 bail.
Back in the United States, Chapman said he would be returning to Mexico "soon." But on Monday, the day he was to appear in court in Puerto Vallarta, he instead appeared at a Ventura County, Calif., hearing to make his case for why he deserved a piece of Luster's $1 million bail money as his bounty.
Hugh Dellios is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.
