Hawai'i bounty hunter helps capture serial rapist
By Kimberly Edds
Washington Post
LOS ANGELES — Fugitive serial rapist Andrew Luster, the great-grandson of cosmetics magnate Max Factor, was captured yesterday by a Hawai'i-based bounty hunter in the Mexican resort town of Puerto Vallarta, authorities said.
Associated Press
Luster, 39, was convicted in absentia in January on 86 counts, including rape, sodomy and poisoning, after fleeing in the middle of his trial. He was sentenced to 124 years in prison.
Max Factor cosmetics heir and convicted rapist Andrew Luster was taken into custody in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Luster had been on the run for five months after fleeing during his trial. He was convicted on 86 counts.
Last week, a couple contacted the FBI and said they had seen Luster in Puerto Vallarta. The couple also passed the information to Duane "Dog" Chapman, a Hawai'i-based bounty hunter pursuing Luster.
"We always believed we would catch him," FBI Supervisory Special Agent Bob Mack said. FBI officials are working with Mexican authorities to have Luster deported to the United States, FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley said.
Luster, who lived mostly on money from his trust fund, was convicted of luring three women back to his Mussel Shoals beach house, about 60 miles north of Los Angeles, between 1996 and 2000 and raping them after spiking their drinks with the date-rape drug GHB.
The sensational case captivated public attention as it played out in court as the tale of a millionaire playboy with a fetish for drugging young women and videotaping himself raping them.
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Producers for CBS's "48 Hours Investigates" drew fire in February for airing portions of Luster's homemade tapes in a piece titled "Lust, Lies and Videotape."
Duane "Dog" Chapman had been chasing Andrew Luster for months.
"I dream about this," Luster says on a tape. "A strawberry blond, beautiful girl, passed out on my bed. And basically there for me to do with whatever I please." CBS planned to rebroadcast the piece last night.
A search of Luster's house in 2000 after a local college student reported that she'd been raped there turned up the tapes of Luster raping, fondling and in one case sodomizing unconscious women. He maintained that the women had consented to sex while being recorded.
Last week, a state appellate court denied a request by Luster's lawyer to review the conviction, ruling Luster forfeited his right to appeal by jumping bail.
The FBI wouldn't provide details about how Chapman and his two sons captured Luster, or how Mexican police arrested the fugitive, but Chapman and his sons were also taken into custody by Mexican authorities. Under Mexican law, arrests made by bounty hunters are illegal and considered kidnappings, but Bosley said it was unclear whether Chapman and his sons would be charged.
Chapman, an ex-convict and born-again Christian, had been on Luster's trail for months. Chapman had said that he hoped to get a percentage of the $1 million bail Luster forfeited when he fled, but Ventura County Sheriff Bob Brooks said yesterday he would not.
"Our understanding is that none of the bail money would be going to the bounty hunter," he said. "There was a $10,000 reward, put up half by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, half by the sheriff's office, that would possibly be eligible for the person that assisted us."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
