‘Dog’ fails to
show in courtThe bounty hunter says he fears
reprisals if he returns to Mexico
PUERTO VALLARTA, Mexico >> Hawaii-based bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman and two others arrested in Mexico for capturing fugitive rapist Andrew Luster failed to show up in court yesterday, a judge said.
Speaking in this Pacific coast resort, Judge Jose de Jesus Pineda said he would give the three until today to explain their absence, then begin proceedings to forfeit their bail.
Chapman, who tracked down the cosmetics heir, said in a phone interview from Los Angeles that his understanding was that Pineda had not required him to return to Mexico.
Chapman, who worked with his son Leland and brother Timothy, said his attorneys told him they would meet with immigration officials yesterday and that he expected to be in touch with the attorneys soon.
"If every lawyer in America tells you, 'Don't go down there again, Dog,' what would you do?" said Chapman. He also said he believed he could be the victim of reprisals, whose nature he would not specify, if he returned to Mexico.
But Chapman said he would like to help Mexican authorities learn better law enforcement techniques, including improved methods of searching and cuffing suspects.
"I would like to help them with some of my skills," he said. "I already stepped up once," he said. "I got the guy." Migration officials were not immediately available to comment on the case.
Chapman spent yesterday in a Ventura, Calif., courtroom seeking a portion of the $1 million bail forfeited by Luster when he jumped bail in January.
"We would like 15 percent for the capture and expenses that we spent," Chapman told KABC-TV Los Angeles outside the courthouse.
Also making a claim for the money were Luster's mother, who claims to have posted the bail; one of the rape victims; and Ventura County officials who want to compensate the district attorney's office and Sheriff's Department for expenses incurred in the search for the rapist.
Judge Edward Brodie decided not to release any of the bail money. He ordered all the parties to bring additional evidence to another hearing set for Aug. 5.
Chapman and the other two Americans flew to California last week shortly after they were released from jail in Puerto Vallarta. During a news conference Wednesday in California, Chapman said he planned to return to Mexico "soon."
Pineda had previously told the Associated Press the three could do whatever they wanted with their free time -- as long as they checked in with him personally every Monday morning.
Pineda ordered the three last month to stand trial on charges of criminal association and deprivation of liberty for a pre-dawn seizure of Luster, the Max Factor heir convicted in absentia in California of drugging and raping three women.