Kidnapping

The trial for Linda Ann Weston and her alleged accomplices, accused of imprisoning four mentally disabled adults in a Tacony basement last fall, has been set for January 2013. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Jan. 28. The trial, which could last up to 10 weeks, would be scheduled to run for four days out of each week, attorneys said. Weston, 52, described by authorities as the ringleader of the group, is charged with kidnapping and assault, among other offenses. Also charged are Gregory Thomas, 48, Weston's boyfriend; Jean McIntosh, Weston's 32-year-old daughter, and Eddie Wright, 51. Prosecutors have alleged that they kidnapped the adults to steal their Social Security checks, then moved them around the country to escape detection by authorities.

They had a luxurious waterfront home in South Carolina, then a trendy townhouse on the edge of a golf course in Colorado. They had a 38-foot sailboat, two Mercedes Benz automobiles and private schools for their son and daughter. Arthur and Irene Seale, both sandy-haired blonds with athletic good looks, appeared to be a perfect fit in Hilton Head and Vail, playgrounds for the rich and famous - and those who wanted to be. The former New Jersey police officer and his high school-sweetheart wife were, as one FBI agent put it, "the ultimate Yuppies.

A PARAMEDIC sparked a panic Tuesday morning when he reported that his co-worker kidnapped him as the pair drove an ambulance through several northwest Philadelphia neighborhoods. Police put out a bulletin on the ambulance, and Cheltenham Township police spotted it and stopped it at 2nd Street and Cheltenham Avenue. Turns out, the driver had just gotten fired, announced that he didn't have a way home and so would drive the ambulance home, taking his apparently unwilling passenger, another paramedic, along in order to return the ambulance, said Trooper Danea Durham, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania State Police, which assisted.

"Webster," the comedy series about an adopted child and his relationship with his new, formerly childless parents, sometimes known for tackling sensitive social issues, continues that tradition tomorrow (Channel 6 at 8) when it addresses the issue of parental kidnapping after one of Webster's (Emmanuel Lewis) friends is taken by his father. "Webster" co-star Susan Clark says she's particiularly interested in helping eliminate the problem of parents kidnapping their own children.

Some Chinatown merchants had already closed up shop for the night when the man with long black hair took little Andy Siu. It was Monday. Andy had been playing with his 5-year-old brother Victor behind a broad storefront window at their family's restaurant supply store, Tung Yute Inc., in the 200 block of North 11th Street. In a back room, the boys' mother, Hsiu Siu, was cooking dinner. It was 6:15 p.m. when she heard Victor scream: "They took Andy!" The 3-year-old boy with fat cheeks and a mop of straight black hair had just become the first kidnap-for-ransom victim in the city in at least 15 years, police would later say. It would all end happily after three hellish days for the hard-working immigrant Cantonese family.

The husband of a woman charged with abducting her baby from a foster home was acquitted yesterday of kidnapping charges. Common Pleas Judge Paul Silverstein acquitted Kwang Ying Tiong, 62, of kidnapping his 2-year-old daughter in July 1988, but found him guilty of interfering with the custody of a child and endangering the welfare of a child in another incident in June 1988. In the other incident, police said Tiong's wife, Feng Ying Chen, 43, allegedly injected their daughter, Ying Zhang, repeatedly with a homemade potion on June 17, l988, in an effort to bring down a fever.

A 34-year-old construction worker was arrested yesterday and charged with the kidnapping, burglary, and robbery of a Collingswood man inside his home last Friday. Mark J. Wyatt, of the 600 block of Haddon Avenue in Collingswood, was arrested at a construction site in Cherry Hill by Collingswood detectives. He was being held in the Camden County Jail last night after he failed to post $37,000 bail. Detective Sgt. Frank Woshnak said Wyatt broke into a house in the first block of East Stiles Avenue and pulled a knife on the homeowner who came home and surprised him. He said Wyatt tied up the man and stole $200 before fleeing in the victim's 1988 maroon Ford Mustang.

An Ohio man who officials say posed as a police officer to lure a stranded female motorist into his truck in Morrisville last month was charged yesterday with kidnapping and assaulting the 21-year-old Bristol Township woman. James Corbit Boswell, 42, was being sought for arrest by authorities in Lebanon, near Cincinnati, Bucks County District Attorney Diane E. Gibbons said. Prosecutors said Boswell never has been a police officer. Impersonating a police officer, Gibbons said, "is one of the most serious offenses you can commit because it undermines and undercuts our ability to protect our community.

THE DAMSEL-in-distress report of a kidnapping of a white mother and child by blacks was not only false but racist. This woman should be charged with discrimination. Do people actually realize how much distress this caused the black community? And to demonstrate how unimportant she believes black men are to Philadelphia police, this damsel charts off to Disney World with her child. Unfortunately, this false report probably caused police to make many illegal stop-&-frisks and illegal arrests, all under the guise of probable cause.

The two accused kidnappers were just trying to do a guy a favor, argued the defense lawyer: Save the alleged victim from himself. Forcing a 21-year-old Roxborough man into a car and taking all of his belongings was an act of kindness, defense lawyer Guy R. Sciolla said yesterday. Sciolla said that when Peter Potoma, 19, of Calumet Street near Ridge Avenue, and Franco Capabianco, 21, of Lauriston Street near Ridge Avenue, muscled Sean Fenerty into a car, they wanted to keep him from blowing his money and jewelry on drugs on March 7, 1999.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. — Describing him as "cruel, depraved, and remorseless," a Superior Court judge sentenced Craig Arno to 120 years in prison Thursday for the brutal kidnapping and murder of an Atlantic City casino patron two years ago. During a highly charged sentencing hearing in Superior Court, Judge Michael Donio told the Atlantic City man he had to be "taken out of society for the rest of [his] natural life," noting that the sentence for murder, kidnapping, aggravating arson, and robbery would require Arno to serve 102 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.

In 1979, 6-year-old Etan Patz disappeared on his way to school in New York. Last month, a fruitless search for Patz's remains in a SoHo basement prompted a national wave of nostalgia for the innocent days of yore. For most of our history, we told ourselves, kids were safe. Then we lost Etan. But we lost our innocence long before, with the 1874 kidnapping of 4-year-old Charley Ross right here in Philadelphia. That was when Americans discovered they could never keep their children completely safe.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - An Atlantic City grifter with a history of fraud convictions was found guilty Thursday of the brutal stabbing death of a casino patron who was carjacked in May 2010 from the Trump Taj Mahal Casino-Hotel. Craig Arno, 46, faces a potential life sentence on murder charges following his conviction by a Superior Court jury on 27 of 28 criminal counts he faced in the death of Martin Caballero. The jury deliberated for five days after a two-week trial. Judge Michael Donio set sentencing for May 24. The trial included chilling and graphic testimony from Arno's former girlfriend and accomplice, Jessica Kisby, 26, who agreed to cooperate with authorities as part of a plea bargain.

A PARAMEDIC sparked a panic Tuesday morning when he reported that his co-worker kidnapped him as the pair drove an ambulance through several northwest Philadelphia neighborhoods. Police put out a bulletin on the ambulance, and Cheltenham Township police spotted it and stopped it at 2nd Street and Cheltenham Avenue. Turns out, the driver had just gotten fired, announced that he didn't have a way home and so would drive the ambulance home, taking his apparently unwilling passenger, another paramedic, along in order to return the ambulance, said Trooper Danea Durham, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania State Police, which assisted.

Jury still undecided in A.C. kidnap-murder An Atlantic County jury deliberated for about six more hours Tuesday without reaching a verdict in the Trump Taj Mahal carjacking-murder case. The jurors spent most of the day listening to the read-back of testimony from two key witnesses in the case, defendant Craig Arno and star prosecution witness Jessica Kisby. Jurors have now spent about 13 hours over three days determining the fate of Arno, 46, who is charged with murder, kidnapping, arson, and related charges.

Jurors deliberated for about two hours Friday before retiring for the weekend in the Trump Taj Mahal casino murder-kidnapping case. Deliberations, which began after Judge Michael Donio completed a lengthy explanation of the laws that apply to the case, are scheduled to resume Monday in Atlantic County Superior Court in Mays Landing. Craig Arno, 46, of Atlantic City, faces charges of murder, carjacking, arson, and related crimes in the death of Martin Caballero, who was killed May 21, 2010.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - Jessica Kisby was the star witness in the Taj Mahal kidnapping-murder case that concluded Thursday, but she clearly was not a favorite of even the prosecution. In closing arguments before an Atlantic County jury, First Assistant County Prosecutor James McClain described Kisby, 26, as a "coldhearted, cold-blooded murderer. " But in a dramatic summation that capped the 10-day trial, McClain told the jury, "At the time she testified, she was one of two coldhearted, cold-blooded murderers in the courtroom.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - Jurors in the Trump Taj Mahal Casino-Hotel kidnapping-murder case got another look Wednesday at Jessica Kisby when the prosecution played a surveillance video of the admitted murderer shoplifting medical supplies from a Kmart in Pleasantville on May 24, 2010. On Tuesday, other surveillance footage played for the Atlantic County jury placed her in the casino garage confronting North Jersey grocer Martin Caballero at the time he was carjacked. It later showed her at an Exxon station buying a 5-gallon can of gasoline that authorities say was used to torch Caballero's Lincoln MKS hours after he was killed May 21, 2010.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - Jurors in the Trump Taj Mahal Casino-Hotel kidnapping-murder case got another look Wednesday at Jessica Kisby when the prosecution played a surveillance video of the admitted murderer shoplifting medical supplies from a K-Mart in Pleasantville on May 24, 2010. On Tuesday, other surveillance footage played for the Atlantic County jury placed her in the casino garage confronting North Jersey grocer Martin Caballero at the time he was carjacked. It later showed her at an Exxon station buying a five-gallon can of gasoline that authorities say was used to torch Caballero's Lincoln MKS hours after he was killed on May 21, 2010.