3 Indicted for Death-Threat Plot Against Player : Crime: They are accused of trying to extort $100,000 from the Rams’ Darryl Henley. Incident allegedly involved a drug deal.

LOS ANGELES —  A federal grand jury on Tuesday indicted three men on charges of trying to extort at least $100,000 from Los Angeles Rams cornerback Darryl Henley with death threats. The four-count indictment formally charges Rafael (Ralph) Bustamante, 28, of Rancho Cucamonga, James Saenz, 31, of Covina, and Alejandro Cuevas, 30, of West Covina, with conspiracy to extort money from the football player.

A fourth man, Moises Heredia, 18, who is Bustamante’s half-brother, had been charged and arrested with the others in connection with the plot, but was not named in the indictment. The charges against Heredia, who had driven a car to a location where the money was supposed to be collected, were dropped Tuesday.

Bustamante has said that Henley owed him $350,000 in connection with a drug deal.

The indictment does not explain the nature of the $350,000 debt, but previously filed affidavits by Drug Enforcement Administration agents indicate that Bustamante financed a 12-kilogram (26.4-pound) cocaine deal that went sour when authorities intercepted a Henley-recruited courier at Atlanta’s Hartsfield International Airport and the drugs were seized.

Court documents said a subsequent investigation revealed that Henley was “the source of the cocaine” that was being carried in a suitcase by then-Rams cheerleader Tracy Donaho.

Attorneys for Henley and Donaho have said neither was involved in the cocaine shipment, and no criminal charges have been filed against either.

Other court documents have said that Henley’s Brea home was the distribution point for a cross-country narcotics network that made cocaine shipments to Atlanta and Memphis and that Donaho picked up packages from his residence and delivered them to various locations across the country.

Tuesday’s indictment charges that Bustamante and Cuevas confronted Henley at gunpoint on Sept. 8 at the Rams training facility in Anaheim and demanded that he pay Bustamante what he owed him. Bustamante reportedly jumped over a security fence at the park and took Henley’s 1992 Lexus.

Eric Manning, a friend of Henley’s who accompanied Bustamante and Cuevas to the Rams training facility, was shot to death outside his Covina apartment shortly after midnight that night.

A week later, Bustamante and Cuevas appeared at Henley’s father’s home in Upland and demanded that the loan be repaid.

Fearing for his family’s safety, Henley cooperated with authorities, who arrested the four men after luring several of them to a rendezvous with promises of a payment on the claimed $350,000 debt. Bustamante and Cuevas had set a deadline of Sept. 25 for the money to be delivered or else Henley would be killed, the indictment states.

Agents arrested both Cuevas and Saenz on the spot and Bustamante surrendered six days later.

The three men are being held without bail at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. They face maximum sentences of 20 years in prison and $250,000 fines if convicted on all counts.

Joan Freeman, a federal public defender representing Cuevas, said her client will be pleading not guilty Monday at his post-indictment arraignment before a U.S. magistrate in Santa Ana. Bustamante’s attorney, Ralph Bencangey, said his client also would plead not guilty. Saenz’s attorney, C. Thomas McDonald, said he had not seen the indictment papers and could not comment.