Jake The Barber, Innkeeper

John Factor
John "Jake the Barber" Factor was a Prohibition-era gangster. He was the brother of prominant businessman Max Factor, Sr, the founder of Max Factor.

Early years
Born Iakov Factorowitz / Faktorowicz, the son of a rabbi, he and his family left England, returning to Łódź, Poland not long after his birth. The family emigrated to the United States in 1904, settling in St. Louis, Missouri. Even though he was poorly educated, Factor had a sharp mind and by the early 1920s was becoming known as a successful confidence man. In 1930, he joined with mobster Arnold Rothstein to pull off what was then considered the largest swindle in European history.

Jake Factor's "kidnapping"
In 1933, Factor was on the run from England, where he had been sentenced to a total of twenty-four years. Factor worked a deal with Al Capone to fake a kidnapping and blame it on Roger "Tough" Touhy. Touhy was convicted on false evidence and sentenced to 99 years in prison. The kidnapping had been set up to eliminate Touhy from competition in Chicago.

Touhy, Factor's wrongly accused kidnapper, escaped from prison in 1942, but was soon recaptured. He was finally found innocent of all charges and released on November 25, 1959. Touhy was shot to death while visiting his sister on December 17. He was probably murdered on the orders of Murray "The Hump" Humphreys, whom he had humiliated many years earlier, and who was acting on behalf of Jake Factor. Touhy had written a book about his false imprisonment, The Stolen Years.


Later years
At the time of Roger Touhy's death, Jake the Barber, now well involved with mob interests in California and Las Vegas, was in Chicago, enjoying a steak at The Singapore, a Mob-controlled restaurant on Rush Street. He later became the front man for Chicago at The Stardust Casino, after its creator, Los Angeles gambler and crime figure Tony Cornero, died in 1955, shortly before the casino was finished construction. On December 3rd 1962, when Factor was finally about to be deported back to England, he was given a Presidential Pardon by John F. Kennedy. In exchange, Jake gave Kennedy $25,000 in cash to help fund the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He sold the Stardust Casino for $14 million and then claimed bankruptcy.

The IRS looked into Factor's financial records and found that Jake had not paid taxes from 1935 to 1939. He was also found to have the lump sum of $479,093.27 in his name. When the government asked Jake how he got the money, he claimed he could not remember. Later, Jake tried to bail out Teamsters Union boss Jimmy Hoffa of his financial Florida real estate problems. He was also involved in a questionable stock transaction with Murray "The Hump" Humphreys.

Jake spent the last twenty years of his life as a benefactor to California's black ghettos. He spent millions of dollars building churches, gyms, parks and low-cost housing in poverty stricken black ghettos. When Jake Factor died, three U.S. Senators, the mayor of Los Angeles and several hundred poor African-Americans attended his funeral.


Further reading

By John Tuohy "I got the Stardust for Chicago," Johnny Roselli bragged and for once, he may have been near the truth. After the Stardust's original owner Tony Cornero, either died of a heart attack or was poisoned, Tony Accardo called Johnny Roselli back to Chicago for a meeting at Moe's Restaurant with Murray Humpreys and Jake Guzak. Always the hustler, Roselli knew that the bosses back in Chicago were worried because they were losing what little presence they had in Vegas, and as the power west of New York, they felt, as a matter of mob pride, that they should have a major presence on the Strip. Roselli filled them in on the situation at the Stardust. It was, as Roselli called it, a "grind joint," a paradise for the low rollers located right in the heart of the Strip. It was agreed immediately that Chicago would take the Stardust for themselves. Eventually Kansas and Milwaukee had a piece of the Stardust, but all activity in the Stardust was overseen by the Chicago family, they got paid for babysitting the action in Las Vegas but they also took a bigger cut because of it.

Fronting the entire operation would be the mob's favorite and most successful con man, John Factor, brother to cosmetic king Max Factor. John Factor, AKA "Jake the Barber" went way back with the Chicago outfit, back to the days when Johnny Torrio was running things. Humpreys either put up Chicago's money for the purchase and used Factor as its front man, or had Factor put up the purchasing money he got from Humpreys. One way or the other two things were certain. From that point on, Jake the Barber was Chicago's front man in Vegas and Chicago had the Stardust, lock, stock and barrel. And it was a mob gold mine. The Stardust boasted 1,032 rooms, and, when it opened for business in 1955, with Lyndon Baines Johnson and Bobby Baker as the guests of honor, the Stardust had one of the biggest casinos in the world. There were some luxury suites but mainly the Stardust was for low rollers. To stress that, in the back parking lot there were the cheap one-room cabins and spaces for RV units. It was Dalitz's idea to set up the Stardust as a place for "low rollers" and the Desert Inn for "high rollers." But first they would have to spruce up the Stardust in the fabled Las Vegas tradition of tacky splendor for the masses, and Murray Humpreys arranged for a million dollar loan from the Teamsters Welfare Fund by way of Red Dorfman via Jimmy Hoffa. At first, the outfit was excited at the prospect of having Jake the Barber as their front man. Jake was, if nothing else, trustworthy. And the reason he was trustworthy was that he was smart enough to know the outfit would kill him in a heartbeat if he tried anything slick with them. The way the boys saw things running was that they would steal the place blind and if anything went wrong, Factor could take the fall for them. "But," wrote Hank Messeck, "he couldn't get a license either, much to the disgust of the Chicago boys. The Barber tried everything he could to get a license but there was no way it was going to happen. He finally bowed to reality and announced he would lease the Desert Inn Group." Factor said he wanted six and a half million a year for the rent but Dalitz was not about to pay that since he held all the aces in the deal including heavy clout with the Nevada state government.  town, got laws passed that kept the wise guys who were the real owners, out of town." "It took," wrote Hank Messeck, "a western Apalachin to solve the matter." Meeting in Sidney Korshak's Beverly Hills office were Meyer Lansky, Longy Zwillman, and Doc Stacher who represented their syndicate and Moe Dalitz and Morris Klienman who represented the Desert Inn. Representing Chicago was Johnny Roselli's replacement by order of Momo Giancana, Marshal Caifano and John Bats Battaglia. It was decided that the lease on the Stardust would be $100,000 a month, a low figure for the second largest moneymaker in Las Vegas. In the end, the true owners of the Stardust were Moe Dalitz and his partners, Paul Ricca, Tony Accardo, Sam Giancana and Murray Humpreys. Other smaller point holders included Wilbur Clark and Yale Cohen. Large or small point holders, everybody was making money off the Stardust. Carl Thomas, the master of the Las Vegas Skim, estimated that the Chicago mob was skimming $400,000.00 a month from the Stardust in the early sixties, and that was only for the one arm bandits in the casino, the blackjack game, keno and roulette and poker yielded a different and higher skim. "Everybody," Thomas said, "played with cash. You couldn't get the paddle into the slot at the craps table, there were so many hundred dollar bills crammed into the drop boxes. That's why the front men who were the big shots inAs a rule, cash from the skims were paid out to each member of the Chicago operation in accordance with the number or percentage of points each person held in the casinos. Normally, only a few thousand dollars per point or percentage were paid out on a regular basis, with the bigger lump sum payments coming in March after the accountants were finished with their end-of-year figures. Then, hidden investors flew into Vegas with their girlfriends and wives to pick up their cash payments in person staying as "comped" guests all over town. Free women, free hotel suites, free gambling, and free money, free everything. For wise guys there was no place in the world like Vegas. Sidney Korshak acted as the "go-between" for Factor and the Desert Inn Group, which was made up of Moe Dalitz and Allard Roen. Ida Devine, the wife of Irving "Niggy" Devine who owned the New York Meat Company, which supplied the Las Vegas casinos, was the prime courier for the skim money out of Vegas to Chicago. She replaced Virginia Hill as Chicago deep cover operative in Vegas and chief exporter for the skimmed cash out of Vegas. Ida would take the train out of Vegas to Chicago's union station where she was normally met by one of Humpreys' people, Gus Alex or George Bieber, law partner to Mike Brodkin. From there, she was escorted to the Ambassador East Hotel on Goethe Street, not far from where Humpreys and Gus Alex lived. They would check into a room there for several hours, Chicago would receive its share of the skim money and then Ida was brought back to Union Station and placed safely on a train out of town. By 1958, Accardo and Sam Giancana were taking $300,000.00 a month each out of Las Vegas. After a while, Giancana didn't trust anybody to bring in his share of the skim, so he went to Vegas and got it himself. Least of all, Giancana didn't trust Jake Factor and eventually assigned the Chicago outfit's "Outside man" in Vegas to follow Factor around Vegas and Beverly Hills and report his every move back to Chicago. Murray Humpreys also stayed very close to Factor during his entire involvement in the Stardust and influenced Factor to follow through with his lease of the Stardust to Moe Dalitz's United Hotels Corporation. The entire deal was so convoluted that the Nevada State Gaming Commission called a special meeting to look into the purchase and called Allen Roen, the Stardust representative, to answer a few questions. Moe Dalitz closed the Stardust deal in Chicago on November 5 and 6, 1960. He met with Accardo, Humpreys and Giancana and worked a deal, which would give Chicago a greater interest in the Stardust as well as the Desert Inn, the Riviera, and the Freemont. The remarkable sale of the Stardust Casino by Factor and his group to Moe Dalitz and his United Hotels happened in August of 1962 for $14,000,000.00, a relatively small amount for such a large enterprise. Eugene "Jimmy" James acted as his go between to the Teamsters fund. James was the former secretary-treasurer of the Laundry Cleaning and Dye House Workers International Union as well as the President of Local 46 of the same union. However, he was caught stealing union funds on November 17, 1960 and he was going to jail as a result. So when Humpreys approached him to act as a go for one point in the Stardust, paid to his family directly while he was in jail, James readily agreed. Tony Accardo, Paul Ricca and Murray Humpreys took at least five points each, a point being valued at $125,000.00. Another mobster named Nick Civella, got $6,000.00 a month out of the deal, paid by the casino, as a broker's fee. When news of the transaction hit the media, that John Factor had sold out what was then one of the largest and most profitable casinos in the world for the paltry sum of $15,000,000.00, Robert Kennedy, then the Attorney General of the States, thought it was a ridiculously small sales figure and ordered an investigation to find out who really owned the Stardust and why the sale price was so small. At the same time Kennedy's Justice Department and the Nevada state gaming commission began scrutinizing the stockholding in the Stardust, they opened this investigation in search of hidden assets by Momo and other hoods. Had those investigations not been halted on the President's orders, it would have revealed hat Factor was a pawn in a much larger game as well as uncovering the Teamsters enormous funds buried in the casinos by mob accountants. In September of 1962, the Federal Government decided that it wanted to talk to John Factor about his incredibly profitable deals at the Stardust Casino. They had lots of questions for Jake the Barber. Two months later, in November of 1962, Factor gave deposition in Chicago about his dealing in Las Vegas and explained that although he was the owner of record of the Stardust, and was still making money off the place, $110,000.00 a month in fact, he had leased the casino portion of the club to the Dalitz group and said that he was shocked when he found out that Moe Dalitz may have been involved with gangsters. Asked about the reported $500,000.00 finder's fee paid out by Moe Dalitz to Chicago's mob lawyer Sidney Korshak, Factor said he knew nothing about Korshak, a finder's fee or the workings of the Parvin-Dohrmann Company, the company Dalitz set up to purchase the casino from Factor. But before the Justice department/Nevada investigation could call Factor in to answer any questions the Immigration and Naturalization Service decided that Jake the Barber was an undesirable alien and made moves to deport him back to England where Jake was still wanted for his part in the stock swindles there. At seventy years of age, John Factor, who had lived in America since at least 1919, was being booted out of the country. It was in this atmosphere that the Los Angeles office of the INS decided to deport the seventy-year old Factor to his native England based on the 1943 conviction because it involved "moral turpitude." George K. Rosenberg, the District Director of the INS was aware that Factor was seeking a pardon. "But because no action had been taken on Factor's pardon application, we figured that he was deportable and we moved to deport him." On December 3, 1962, the Department of Justice requested that the Immigration and Naturalization begin proceedings to deport John Factor from the United States to England where he was a wanted felon. Unable to show due cause why he should not be deported, Factor was ordered to surrender to the Los Angeles office of the INS on December 21, 1962, at which point he would be arrested and deported out of the country. Adding to Factor's woes was the ongoing IRS investigation into his back taxes for the years 1935 through 1939. The government wanted Factor to explain where he received $479,093.27 in income, and Factor couldn't remember. If he were deported, the Government would impound his holdings until the matter was settled. On November 26, 1962, Attorney General Robert Kennedy did something unusual; he changed the laws that govern Presidential pardons. From 1946 through 1997, those rules had only been tampered with twice. There were fourteen sets of rules governing presidential pardons, which were laid down in 1893. Harry Truman changed those rules in 1946 after his fingers were caught in the early release of Paul Ricca and the other hoods caught up in the Bioff scandal. Bobby Kennedy changed the rules a month after Factor's pardon so that all pardon requests went directly to the White House and then to the Justice Department, not the other way around which is how it was before Factor's pardon was granted. The rules that govern presidential pardons are "advisory in nature," meaning that the President is not bound by any rules in deciding who he will grant a pardon and John Kennedy granted a lot of pardons during his short stint in the White House, 472 of them in all. The rules of Presidential pardon state that the Attorney General, whom it was assumed by the writers of the constitution would be a lawyer, should recommend the pardons to the president. One day a very drunken Chuckie English, a former 42 member and sometime driver to Sam Giancana, strolled out of the Amory Lounge and leaned up against the FBI observation car parked just across the street from the tavern. The agents reported, "English is bemoaning the fact that the federal government is closing in on the organization and nothing can be done about it. He made several bad remarks about the Kennedy administration and pointed out that the Attorney General raising money for the Cuba invaders makes Chicago's syndicate look like amateurs." What English was talking about in front of a bar on a cold Chicago afternoon was the same thing business executives across the country were whispering about in their boardrooms. Many of the nations leading CEOs had taken phone calls and were amazed to find themselves on the other end of a phone line with the Attorney General of the United States of America. They were even more amazed at what they heard. Kennedy wanted money for the Bay of Pigs program. He reminded the executives that they had either pending contracts before the government or criminal cases pending brought by the Justice department. Before they could respond, Kennedy once again mentioned the fund to free the Cubans and hung up. Jake Factor threw $25,000.00 cash into the project and explained to a curious press that James Roosevelt, the problem child of the clan, had approached him about the donation. Then it fell from the skies like a bolt of lightning. On December 24, 1962, from his father's estate in Palm Beach, Florida, President John F. Kennedy signed a Presidential Pardon for Jake the Barber for the mail fraud charges. Pardons are normally granted on a master warrant and several sentence reductions were given that day on a master pardon but Factor's was the only single pardon granted. The deportation proceedings against Jake the Barber were dismissed on December 26, 1962. Factor filed a pardon application on August 6, 1956, but on October 18, 1956, there was adverse action on the application and he filed a second time. This petition was also denied. Factor's pardon, backed by California Democratic Governor Pat Brown and Republican Senator Thomas Kuchel, came in the middle of a joint United States Department of Justice and Nevada State Gaming Commission investigation into the Stardust Casino-hotel's ownership and the remarkable sale of the place by Factor and his group in August of 1962 for $14,000,000.00. It was never made clear if Kennedy's actions also killed the investigation of Factor's dealing in the Stardust but one way or the other, the investigation into the dealings over at the Stardust were closed. A Presidential pardon was golden but just to be sure, on July 16, 1963, in Los Angeles John Factor, the poor kid from the ghettos of Chicago, raised a slightly shaking hand and along with other more recent arrivals, took the oath of citizenship of the United States of America. "I'm the luckiest man alive," he said and he was probably right. Factor always denied that the mob used pressure with the White House to win him his pardon but in mid 1963, while Factor was trying to gain control of the National Life Insurance company of America and was buying up the company's shares at $125.00 each, he then sold 400 shares of his $125.00 a share stock to Murray Humpreys at $20.00 each. A loss of $105.00 per share to Factor. Humpreys then sold the shares back to Factor for $125.00 a share making Humpreys $42,000.00 richer in one day. As far as the Hump's unusual and creative stock transaction with Jake the Barber was concerned, the government decided that it was a taxable exchange "for services rendered" and sent tax gain bills to both them. Mr. Tuohy can be contacted by writing to MobStudy@aol.com Article # 53/184 http://www.chilit.org/MCCONNEL.HTM   http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/johnfactor.htm

 
Andrew Luster

Luster never lacked female companionship. He had a number of live-in girlfriends over the years, and he was fond of bragging about his deft touch at picking up women—some young, some wealthy.

Luster apparently preferred young to wealthy.

As middle age beckoned, he continued to pursue a rather sad romantic life.

His favorite haunts were the college bars in the Isla Vista section and on State Street in Santa Barbara, where the clientele was not much more than half his age.

He was trawling for young hotties on that July Friday night in 2000 when he hooked up with the sloshed Carey at O'Malley's.

Carey later said she felt "sort of like a robot" after sipping the water that Luster delivered to the drunken dancers.

The night became a bacchanal.

Carey and her friend David left O'Malley's with Luster and a third man in Luster's SUV. They went to a Santa Barbara strip club but were turned away at the door because Carey and David were too drunk. Luster then drove the group 15 miles down the coast to his place at Mussel Shoals.

On the way, Carey and David apparently had sex in the back seat.

Luster said he saw Carey engage in oral sex with David. David later said he couldn't be certain because he was drunk or drugged, but he and Carey "probably" also had intercourse when she lifted her dress and straddled him in Luster's moving vehicle, a Toyota Forerunner.

When they arrived in Mussel Shoals, Carey went skinny dipping in the ocean in her thong, stripping off her dress as David and Luster watched. The men then escorted her inside Luster's house, and she went into the shower and had sex with Luster, she later said.
Luster doctored drink

After the shower, Luster gave her another doctored drink. "It tasted good," she said, but a "wave of heat" hit her. "What the hell did you put in my drink?" she asked. A Bottle of GBH  Luster replied, "Liquid Ecstasy," using the rave name for GHB, the date-rape drug gamma hydroxybutyric acid. She and Luster then had sex a second time on his bed. The next morning, Carey found herself naked in Luster's bed. David was asleep elsewhere in the house. She said she tried to leave but he had sex with her a third time. The woman said she may have had sex with a third man, Luster's friend. Later that morning, Luster drove Carey and David to her apartment in Santa Barbara. She gave him her phone number.

 The Luster case might have been an appellant lawyer's dream, with three complicated victims, questions about the police seizure of the sex video, conflicts with Judge Riley over admissibility of evidence and concerns over whether police and prosecutors had primed or prompted Tonja and Shauna to help them shape their case.

But under California law, Luster forfeited all rights to appeal when he skipped out on his bail.

Appeals court Judge Kenneth Yegan wrote, "An appellate court may employ dismissal as a sanction when a defendant's flight operates as an affront to the dignity of the court's proceedings. It is often said that a fugitive 'flouts' the authority of the court by escaping, and that dismissal is an appropriate sanction for this act of disrespect...Had petitioner voluntarily reappeared, he would have a much stronger argument for reinstatement of the appeal."

 
Luster has tried to claim that he was coerced into fleeing by another of his defense attorneys, Richard Sherman. Luster filed a $6 million lawsuit against Sherman in 2004, alleging he was part of a conspiracy to defraud him of his house, antiques and money.

The complaint alleges, "During several meetings at Sherman's office and in court, Sherman...told Luster to flee to Mexico or otherwise he would end up a 'dead man' as a result of the criminal trial."

"The charges are absurd," Sherman told reporters. He said Luster was angling to get his right to appeal reinstated by trying to prove that someone else counseled him to run. An American millionaire has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges in connection with three alleged rapes in which women were drugged.
The man, Andrew Luster, who is a great-grandson of the late cosmetics tycoon Max Factor, appeared in a California court on Tuesday.

Former partner of Andrew Luster
Mr Luster is currently in custody with bail set at $10m after prosecutors described him as a danger to women.

Prosecutors say he left a string of victims around the world.

 

By John Rice
ASSOCIATED PRESS
12:03 a.m., June 20, 2003



Associated Press
Bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman holds the steel bars of the Policia Judicial Estatal office jail in Puerto Vallarta, as Tim Chapman, back left, and TV free-lance producer Jeff Sells walk inside.

PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico – Reality TV producer Jeff Sells says four days in jail would be worth it "if we saved one girl from getting raped."

Dog will get four years

But Sells and four other Americans face the possibility of four years – perhaps even longer – in prison as Mexican officials debate what charges they might bring over Wednesday's street-corner capture of convicted rapist Andrew Luster.

Prosecutor Marco Roberto Juarez said his office was to announce by Friday afternoon what, if any, charges it will bring against the Americans. The most frequently mentioned possible charge was illegal deprivation of liberty, which carries a possible four-year sentence.

Authorities say a group led by Hawaii-based bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman seized and handcuffed Luster – the great-grandson of cosmetics legend Max Factor – as he was ordering tacos from a street-side stand before dawn Wednesday morning.

Chapman, his brother Timothy, his son Leland, Sells and actor Boris Krutonog were arrested about two hours later as they drove northwest out of Puerto Vallarta in two vehicles, along with Luster.

On Thursday, authorities expelled Luster to the United States, where he was immediately taken to a California prison to begin serving his 124-year sentence for the drugging and raping of three women.

Before coming to Mexico, Chapman had told reporters he hoped that, by capturing Luster, he would reap a reward from the $1 million cash bail the fugitive forfeited when he went on the lam during his trial in January. But bounty hunting is a crime in Mexico.

"There is not doubt that (Luster) committed a crime," Juarez told reporters. "He is going to pay for it in the United States."

But he added, "A foreigner cannot come here and assume the functions of police and detain people." He said Chapman should have notified Mexican officials he had located Luster and allowed them to make the arrest.

In the Jalisco state capital of Guadalajara, Gov. Francisco Ramirez said Thursday that at least some of the Americans would be charged with crimes.

"They took (Luster) in handcuffs without being police, and that is not allowed by the laws of our country," he said.

Chapman, 50, refused to discuss Luster when he spoke briefly with reporters Thursday from jail.

"Nothing about Luster. Nothing about Luster. That's it. I'm done," he said, then walked off.

In his brief remarks from jail, Sells said Chapman and those working with him were heroes.

"They took a rapist off the street and to me that's a big deal," he said, adding some police officers had even shaken Chapman's hand afterward.

Sells was apparently working on a television program about Chapman when the group was arrested.

"I work in reality TV," he said, "and this is about as reality as you can get, because I'm sittin' in a prison."

Chapman's 37-year-old brother and 26-year-old son refused to discuss Luster but sent greetings to their families and assurances that they had not been mistreated.

Actor Boris Krutonog, who has had roles in such films such as "The Italian Job," "Air Force One" and "Hunt for Red October," said he'd been through "an emotional roller coaster the last couple of days."

"I just hope to make it home soon to my wife and kids – and laugh again," Krutonog said.

He declined to say what he had been doing with the group.

Lost video tape of capture

Sells said he didn't know if videotape of the capture exists.

"That went down so fast I think the camera is even broken," he said. "I don't know. It wasn't expected."


Inside the take-down of Andrew Luster

Fugitive rapist and cosmetics heir Andrew Luster, with new facial hair in this Puerto Vallarta mugshot, was collared Wednesday.




By Matt Bean
Court TV
Duane "Dog" Chapman, the bounty hunter who took down fugitive rapist Andrew Luster in a Mexico showdown Wednesday, beat an FBI attache to the case by mere hours, said an FBI official as details of the frantic struggle emerged late Wednesday.

The scramble for Luster, who skipped out on a crumbling California trial on rape and drugging charges, came down to an early morning confrontation in the street.

After more than five months on the case, Chapman caught up with Luster in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, a resort town of cheap drink specials, discos and American tourists. The bounty hunter brought his sons, Leland and Tim Chapman, and a two-man camera crew.



Duane "Dog" Chapman's Puerto Vallarta mug shot


Leads generated from his Web site had fueled Chapman's five-month search, but this time it was a tip from an American tourist couple who had been in contact with Luster in Puerto Vallarta that set him off.

The couple later tipped off the FBI as well, but Chapman, who boasts 6,000 collars and had followed Luster's trial from Ventura to Santa Monica and beyond, had a head start.

He found the fugitive heir, who had been using the alias David Carrera, in Zoo Bar, near the intersection of avenues Mexico and Honduras. Using mace and handcuffs, Chapman and his crew seized Luster. As the men wrestled Luster outside and piled into two trucks, a Chevrolet Suburban and a Chrysler Voyager, local merchants alerted police to the scuffle.

Chapman's spokesperson, Beth Smith, told Court TV she was on the phone with the burly bounty hunter as he snatched Luster. "[Luster] freaked out a little when he saw Dog," said Smith. "Dog never carries a weapon of any kind, only mace," and it didn't seem like anyone got hurt.

After the take-down, said Smith, the crew headed for the airport. Then the abduction went wrong.

"Duane was taking him to a more secure location and the local cops grabbed him," said Smith.

In Mexico, kidnapping, of a fugitive or not, is an arrestable offense. All six men were detained.
 

fbi

But while Chapman may have been responsible for Luster's eventual return to the U.S., authorities appeared unimpressed with the vigilante's efforts. Law enforcement officials bristled at the mention of Chapman in a press conference late Wednesday, chastising him for going too far, and signaling that they would not help the bounty hunter dodge potential kidnapping charges. "I think his actions are just beyond the bounds that I can condone," said Ralph Boelter, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Ventura office. "He's out there acting on his own ... Certainly it is not something the FBI would condone. We will not be acting on his behalf."

Chapman had his eye on Mexico as early as January. "All these rich guys have their hole in the wall," he said then. "There's always a place where they think there's no cops."

In Mexico, he said, resort employees and local residents often respond to one timeless tactic: handing a potential tipster half of a torn hundred-dollar bill, and promising the other half when their tips pay off.

A Puerto Vallarta newspaper reporter, Angela Corelis, said that fugitive take-downs are commonplace in the resort town. "Once a week they pick someone up down here," said Corelis. "They get drunk and cry about [what they did] in bars."

Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks, who said he had six officers working leads on the Luster case at some points in the investigation, told reporters he wasn't embarassed that Chapman scooped his department.

"We were surprised but not embarassed," said Brooks. "He's off the streets."

Just how long it will take before Luster is returned to the U.S. remains to be seen. If Mexican immigration authorities confirm that he was in the country illegally, he could be deported — a quick process. Extradition proceedings would likely take longer.



Duane "Dog" Chapman


When Luster does touch down in California, Ventura County authorities will take custody of him.

Officials said Wednesday that it was unclear whether Chapman would qualify for a $10,000 reward for Luster's capture, or for any of the $1 million bond he posted before skipping bail.

"His arrogance was his downfall," said Beth Smith, Chapman's spokesperson and companion. "This is an arrogant person and his his arrogance was his downfall as Dog said it would be."

Luster, the 39-year-old great-grandson of cosmetics king Max Factor, was convicted in absentia of 86 counts, including multiple rape charges connected to assaults in 1996, 1997 and 2000. Police say he videotaped sex with unconscious women after drugging them with the date rape drug GHB.
 

US millionaire denies 'drug-rape' An American millionaire has pleaded not guilty to 40 charges in connection with three alleged rapes in which women were drugged. The man, Andrew Luster, who is a great-grandson of the late cosmetics tycoon Max Factor, appeared in a California court on Tuesday. I just had no idea I was a victim Former partner of Andrew Luster Mr Luster is currently in custody with bail set at $10m after prosecutors described him as a danger to women Wealthy Jews Prosecutors say he left a string of victims around the world. British newspapers say that US police are investigating whether Mr Luster could be part of a transatlantic ring of "wealthy bad boys", because of an alleged date-rape case in London. Sex, drugs and videotapes The US prosecutors believe that the 36-year-old millionaire sedated women with so-called date-rape drugs such as GHB and then sexually assaulted and video-taped them at his beach house. It's like we've just scratched the surface   Deputy District Attorney Becky Day He currently faces charges related to attacks on three different women, but Californian police expect other victims to come forward. "It's like we've just scratched the surface, " said Deputy District Attorney Becky Day. When detectives searched Mr Luster's ocean-front home in Santa Barbara, they allegedly found photographs and videotapes, guns including an AK-47 assault rifle, several bottles of the drug GHB, and cocaine. They say they also recovered photos and videotapes showing at least five semi-conscious women taking part in sex acts.   'Blown away' One of the women, whose identity is being withheld, came forward to help the Californian police after hearing of Mr Luster's arrest. The woman said she was shocked to learn that he had apparently assaulted her and videotaped the incident. "I just had no idea I was a victim," she told the Los Angeles Times. "I'm completely blown away by this." Mr Luster's lawyer said his client engaged in purely consensual sex and denied the charges. British newspapers say that Californian police are to interview a British woman, Nina Richards, who believes that she was the victim of a drugged date-rape which might be recorded on Mr Luster's tapes. British police officers have flown to California to interview a man in connection with her case.