The last Crime Time ended with sketchy details about Monday's armed invasion of the Newport Coast home of Daniel Sadek, the Redline movie producer-writer and former sub-prime mortgage king September's Vanity Fair
ranked No. 86 on a list of institutions
and people most to blame for the nation's economic problems.
The Orange County District Attorney's office has now filled in some of the blanks.
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According to the DA's account:
Five men conspired to rob Sadek's home Monday night. They drove three cars to a meeting in a Newport Beach grocery
store parking lot. A pass had previously been obtained to enter the gated Newport Coast residential community. One man drove his Honda Civic up to just outside the gate and waited in his car. A BMW was also driven there but left empty outside the gate. Four of the men then entered the neighborhood in a third car, with three getting out in front of Sadek's house while the driver stayed behind.
Around 10:15 p.m., the three men, each armed, entered the home, which was occupied by nine other people. The victims were bound and three of them were hit in the head with firearms as the gunmen stole watches, wallets, cell phones, cash, and other valuables.
While Newport Beach police originally reported the 9-1-1 call came from a backyard next to Sadek's house at 7 Longboat,
which is off Pelican Ridge, the DA's statement claims victims inside the violated home placed emergency calls.
About the time bandits were fleeing Sadek's home, police officers were rolling up to the gate, where they arrested the man in the Honda. He was later identified as Peter Joseph
Paturzo, 44, of Mission Viejo. One of his alleged partners injured his leg, possibly breaking it, as he tried to get away. Limping Mickael Andre Hastings, 36, of Los
Angeles, was popped in a nearby yard. Antoine Bashiri Boyd, 31, of Los Angeles, was driving away from the scene when he was pulled over on Newport Coast Drive and arrested. Warrants of $1 million have been issued for the arrests of Ronnie Labert Morrissette, 34, and Darrin Mucker, 37,
both of LA, who remain at large.
Each
defendant is charged with one felony count of conspiracy to commit robbery, two
felony counts of kidnapping to commit robbery, five felony counts of
first degree robbery in concert, and six felony counts of assault with
a firearm. If convicted on all counts, each could get life in prison. Prosecutors are scheduled to request
$1 million bail for Hastings at his arraignment later this afternoon in Santa Ana. Boyd and Paturzo, who were released on $100,000 bail, are to return for their Jan. 26, 2010, arraignments.
Two unidentified victims of the gun beatings were treated at the home for their head injuries while the third was taken to a local hospital.
Vanity Fair nicknamed Sadek “Predator Zero in the subprime-mortgage game.” His Quick Loan Funding of Newport Beach wrote $4 billion in mortgages between 2002 and
2007. But the California Department of Corporations revoked Sadek's lending and escrow licenses
in December 2008 after investigators concluded he used funds from another one of his companies, Platinum Coast
Escrow Inc., to take out markers to cover gambling at various Las Vegas hotels, among other offenses.
A January Orange County Register
investigation found Sadek owed $2.3 million for
unpaid taxes, mortgages and homeowner association dues. That didn't
count $134,467 an Orange County Superior Court judgment filed that same
month said Sadek owed the Bellagio Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. He reportedly declared bankruptcy in Nevada two months ago.
Authorites have not yet said whether the crime was related to Sadek's financial woes.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.