Couple Who Met Fugitive Heir Helped Nab Him

L O S   A N G E L E S, June 20, 2003 -- When Andrew Luster showed up at the door of an American couple who own a resort community in Puerto Vallarta in April, he claimed to be a surfer from Hawaii looking to buy real estate.

But two months later, resort owners Min Labanauskas and Mona Rains learned who Luster really was, and that he was wanted by the FBI.

In the hours before his takedown, Labanauskas and Rains followed Luster as he was club-hopping in Puerto Vallarta. They were helping bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman hunt him down and were there for his capture.

Luster, an heir to the Max Factor cosmetics fortune, was convicted in January in absentia. A California court sentenced him to 124 years for multiple counts of rape, poisoning and drug possession a few days after he vanished during a recess in the trial. He had posted $1 million in bail before he left.

A Surfer from Hawaii?

Then, Luster apparently assumed a new identity in Mexico.

Luster introduced himself to Labanauskas as David Carerra. Labanauskas said Luster claimed he was a surfer from Hawaii who had been traveling around Mexico for two months, looking to buy some property for other people as a real estate investment.

"Andrew showed up one afternoon with the intentions of looking for property," Labanauskas said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "We showed him around and then he stayed to party with some of the guests," he said.

Luster stayed overnight in one of the resort's empty villas and left a thank-you note in the morning, Labanauskas said.

A Generous Guest

The couple took a trip to the United States in mid-April through May, and while they were gone, Luster stayed at one of their villas again, and one of the resort's maids gave them a note he had left saying he had surfed and fished and loved the area.

Labanauskas said Luster left a number where he could be reached, but Labanauskas said he never called him until he got a surprising e-mail, which included a link to a Web site, from friends who believed they recognized Luster.

"We got an e-mail from friends of ours who had been guests of the hotel and they told us to look up this Web site , which turned out to be the FBI Los Angeles most wanted Web site," Labanauskas.

Labanauskas said he and his wife recognized Luster as the man who had introduced himself to them as David Carerra, and they decided to call their lawyer for assistance.

Labanauskas had his lawyer in Mexico call an FBI agent who was going to pass on the information. Then they looked up Luster on the Internet and the name of the bounty hunter Duane "Dog" Chapman came up.

"He had listed the fact that he had been after Andrew Luster for a long time and was looking for any kind of information as to where he could be found," Labanauskas said.

The resort owners then contacted Chapman and came up with a plan to work together. Then they called Luster at his Guadalajara number and he told them he was staying at the Hotel Los Angeles in Puerto Vallarta.

Nightclub Hopping

Labanauskas knew Luster was driving a white Jetta and saw it pull up to the hotel before Luster went out for the night to one of his favorite clubs, the Zoo nightclub, where the manager said he had been a regular.

After Luster left the Zoo early Wednesday morning, Chapman apprehended him on an open street as bystanders called police and Labanauskas filmed the arrests.

Unable to sort out who was who in the fracas, authorities jailed Luster, as well as Chapman, his two sons, and a two-man television crew which included a Hollywood actor named Boris Krutonog.

Labanauskas and his wife looked on as the group was escorted to a Mexican prison.

Luster was deported from Mexico and flown to California Thursday to begin serving his sentence. FBI agents turned him over to sheriff's officials from Ventura County, where he was convicted in January, and he was then taken to Wasco State Prison in Kern County.