TORONTO -- A Florida bounty hunter and a Virginia bail bondsman could get life jail terms for conviction of kidnapping a real-estate developer in Canada and spiriting him off to Florida to face charges of land-sales fraud.
An Ontario jury Wednesday found Timm Johnsen, 43, an Orlando bounty hunter, and Daniel Kear, 37, a Fairfax, Va., bondsman, guilty.
They will be sentenced June 9 for kidnapping Sidney Jaffe from Canada Sept. 23, 1981, because he failed to appear for trial in Florida. They face maximum life terms.
Alan Gold, Johnsen's lawyer, said he expected to appeal.
'Usually we think of kidnapping as some criminal taking somebody and holding them for ransom,' Gold said. 'This is an unprecedented case. As far as we know it's the first verdict of its kind.'
The jury heard testimony that Johnsen masqueraded as a police officer wanting to question the land developer.
Jaffe, 61, testified he was beaten and told he would be returned to Orlando 'dead or alive' as the men took him by car to the U.S. border at Niagara Falls and then flew to Orlando.
Jaffe, born in the United States but now a Canadian citizen, testified he was told that if he alerted U.S. customs officials at the border, his daughter would be harmed. He also said Johnsen told him that 'it makes no difference whether we produce you dead or alive.'
Kear denied those claims and Johnsen did not testify.
Kear said he believed that under the bonding agreement that provided for Jaffe's apprehension if he failed to appear for trial, he had the right to arrest Jaffe anywhere. Supreme Court Justice Frank Callaghan told the jurors that did not apply in Canada.
Defense lawyers argued Jaffe went willingly because he also believed the bonding agreement was valid.
Jaffe was charged in Florida in 1980 under Florida's Uniform Land Sales Practices Act relating to 1,500 acres of farmland owned by one of his companies.
His $137,500 bail was paid -- for a 10 percent fee -- by a bonding company that faced losing the money when he did not return. The men came to Toronto and nabbed him on a downtown street.
Jaffe was sentenced to 35 years in prison on the land-sales and bail-jumping charges but was paroled in 1983 when all but the bail-skipping conviction was overturned.
