Kidnaping in Mexico Raises Legal Questions : Border: Bounty hunters, who face charges in fugitive’s abduction, say it was organized by police in Salinas.

SAN DIEGO —  In bounty hunter jargon, it was a cross-border “extraction.”

The four heavily armed bounty hunters from Salinas tracked down a suspected triple murderer at his brother’s house in Mexicali. Aided clandestinely by one or two Mexican federal police officers, they chased and tackled the fugitive, hustled him into their car and fled to the international line, according to authorities.

That was as far as they got: U.S. Customs inspectors arrested all five men after noticing that the morose passenger in the back seat of the Oldsmobile Cutlass was handcuffed and bleeding.

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The aftermath of that expedition in July has become steadily more complex. The bounty hunters are marooned in a legal wilderness familiar to police and prosecutors who work at the U.S.-Mexico border. And the case poses a quandary of delicate diplomatic questions and accusations of police misconduct.

The fugitive, 28-year-old Daniel Covarrubias, awaits trial in Salinas for a savage home invasion in which gunmen killed three adults and wounded a baby. Three of the bounty hunters, ex-convicts all, pleaded guilty to gun charges in San Diego last week. Federal prosecutors have treated them sternly, mindful of past disputes with Mexican authorities.

“We are not in a position where we are going to look the other way when people do this,” said U.S. Atty. Alan Bersin. “The border is not going to be lawful in some ways and lawless in others.”

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But Bersin, the attorney general’s special representative at the border, knows how convoluted and contradictory the reality here can be. Sometimes, Mexican police aggressively pursue fugitives from the United States. Other suspects, though, take refuge south of the line behind a wall of corruption and bureaucracy--frustrating police and victims on the other side.

Friends and lawyers of the bounty hunters say they are heroes, despite their pasts. And Edward Anguiano, the only bounty hunter who did not plead guilty, advances an explosive defense: He claims he is innocent because Salinas homicide detectives recruited him and organized the abduction.

The detectives allegedly communicated with the bounty hunters by cellular phone on the day Covarrubias was caught, according to court papers. Lawyers have demanded the contents of FBI interviews with the detectives as potentially exculpatory evidence that Anguiano’s conduct was officially sanctioned, a defense known as “public authority.”

“These individuals were acting at the behest of law enforcement and apprehended a triple murderer,” said defense lawyer Steven E. Feldman. “He is in jail and they are being prosecuted. Why is that? It doesn’t seem fair.”

The chief of police in Salinas asserts that investigations by his agency and the Justice Department show that his detectives did not play a role in the abduction. The bounty hunters proposed the “soldier-of-fortune mission” to the detectives, according to Chief Dan Nelson, and were rejected.

Nelson said of the detectives: “There was no duplicity or complicity on their part. They told them that we cannot be involved in anything remotely close to that.”

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As for the allegation about cellular phone calls, Nelson said a bounty hunter called a detective to tell him that the fugitive had been nabbed and that the detective “may have returned the call.”

The accusation of police involvement revives memories of a rancorous dispute between the United States and Mexico that followed the torture-murder of a Drug Enforcement Agency agent in Guadalajara in 1985. Enraged at evidence indicating that Mexican police and political figures protected the killers, the DEA kidnaped several suspects and spirited them to California for trial. An enraged Mexico sought a treaty outlawing such abductions; the accord exists, but has not been ratified.

Although cooperation has improved during the year-old administration of President Ernesto Zedillo, U.S. officials hope for more action on fugitives and extraditions--Mexico has never extradited a Mexican citizen. In a pending case against the alleged masterminds of a cross-border drug smuggling tunnel, for example, Mexican police have failed to capture the suspects, two rich Los Angeles businessmen who fled to Tijuana.

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“While we expect greater and greater cooperation from Mexican authorities in dealing with the problem of fugitives,” Bersin said, “the pace of the progress in this area should not detract from our effort to prosecute those who violate U.S. law at the border.”

In that context, the prosecution of the Salinas bounty hunters appears to be a demonstration of good faith by the Justice Department.

Prosecutors filed but then dropped kidnaping charges, charging the suspects as felons in possession of weapons instead. It is debatable whether the capture in Mexicali amounts to a crime under U.S. law. Moreover, Mexico could not request extradition if the United States tried the suspects for kidnaping.

Beyond the legal issues, the case has been marked by an odd combination of amateurism and brutality. It began about a year ago in a bleak barrio in Salinas, when Covarrubias and two other gunmen allegedly stormed into a small garage converted into a two-room house. Prosecutors remain unsure whether they wanted money, drugs or revenge; the gunmen and the victims were immigrant laborers and did not have serious criminal records.

Regardless, farm worker Ramon Morales, his wife Martha and her brother, Fernando Martinez, were killed. The gunmen also wounded the couple’s 11-month old daughter.

“It was one of the most grisly things I’ve seen in 30 years of law enforcement,” Nelson said. “It was a dastardly murder. There were heads blown up like watermelons.”

The police soon arrested two accomplices. Tipped off by relatives of the victims and suspects, detectives then traced Covarrubias, Joaquin Nunez and Antonio Sanchez to the Mexican state of Sinaloa, authorities said. San Diego-based investigators from the California Department of Justice, who specialize in cross-border cases, initiated a standard legal request for Mexico to charge the fugitives under Article 4 of the Mexican Constitution, which enables prosecution of crimes committed on foreign soil.

Although weeks passed and at least one suspect left for Mexicali, U.S. federal prosecutors say Mexican officials moved with relative speed. Authorities in Salinas disagree. Chief Nelson blamed “slow bureaucracy” rather than corruption.

“What really galled us here was that we knew where these people were,” he said. “One was working down there, he had a job.”

Enter the bounty-hunting quartet: Anguiano, 27, Dean Espinosa, 38, Joe Navarro, 30, and Jason Wilson, 25.

They worked for a bail bondsman with offices in Salinas and El Centro, just across the border from Mexicali.

According to the defense, Detectives John Gates and Tim McLaughlin planned and supervised the operation. The two allegedly met with the bounty hunters this summer, told them where Covarrubias was hiding and stayed in touch by phone, ready to pick up the fugitive when he was returned to U.S. soil, according to written arguments by attorney Feldman.

If true, that scenario could shield the bounty hunters against charges of being ex-convicts in illegal possession of weapons because they armed themselves believing that they were agents of the police, defense attorneys suggest. Feldman also claims the abduction was carried out by one or two Mexican federal police officers.

Prosecutors reject that interpretation. They say the bounty hunters, led by Espinosa, approached relatives of the murder victims and offered to capture Covarrubias. Their payment would be a fee of about $5,000, split four ways and sweetened by the fringe benefit of the glory, authorities say.

“Maybe there was a little ego involved, not necessarily the money,” Nelson said. “It was like, ‘Hey, you guys can’t get him. But we’ll go get him.’ ” The competing versions will be hashed out at Anguiano’s trial. For now, three points are clear: the adventure got the bounty hunters in a lot of trouble. Two suspected killers remain at large, probably in Mexico, probably less likely to be caught because of the diplomatic tension generated by the case. And Covarrubias is behind bars in Salinas, which few ever expected.