OFF THE WIRE
BY: James Queally
New Jersey - ~Missouri man is charged with leading role in abduction, beating of Newton businessman~
NEWTON - After months spent searching through his cell phone and financial records, authorities have uncovered enough evidence to charge William Barger with masterminding the bizarre abduction of a Newton businessman earlier this year.
Barger, a 49-year-old Missouri resident who once claimed to be the heir apparent to the notorious Hell's Angels motorcycle gang, now faces kidnapping and conspiracy charges in connection with the January abduction of Jeffrey Muller, police Chief John Tomasula said today.
Five men have been arrested in connection with the kidnapping in the past six months.
The 59-year-old Newton man was assaulted and zapped with a stun gun by three Missouri men - Douglas Stangeland, Andrew Wadel and Lonnie Swarnes - who allegedly stuffed him into the trunk of a car in the parking lot of Muller's Newton pet supply shop on Jan. 8th.
Investigators believe the trio was targeting a different Jeffrey Muller, a money broker who resides in New York, but grabbed the wrong man.
Tomasula said today that evidence gleaned from Barger's cell phone and personal computers show he orchestrated the kidnapping. The men who attacked Muller may have been "prospects" in Barger's fledgling chapter of the Hell's Angels, according to Deputy Steve Schlup of the Vernon County, Mo., Sheriff's Office.
While Barger claims to be the son of Ralph "Sonny Barger," founder of the infamous Hell's Angels, his attorney has denied that claim.
Muller was repeatedly threatened with violence by his captors over the course of a 1,200 mile ride from New Jersey to Lake Ozark, Mo., despite the businessman's repeated claims that the trio had abducted the wrong man, according to the victim's son. The 59-year-old escaped from the trunk of the car shortly after it broke down near a convenience store, and local authorities arrested Stangeland, Wadel and Swarnes almost immediately.
In a March interview, Schlup said the entire ordeal was sparked by a booze-fueled conversation between Stangeland and a defeated entrepreneur named Roy Slates, whose attempt to build a championship-caliber golf course in southern Utah was derailed when Muller, the money broker, failed to produce investors.
The January abduction sparked a multi-agency probe involving members of the Newton Police Department, the Sussex County Prosecutor's Office, the New Jersey State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Vernon County Sheriff's Office in Missouri. Barger is currently being held at the Vernon County Jail on burglary and weapons charges stemming from a prior incident where a man was struck by a shotgun blast during a home invasion, Tomasula said.
Stangeland, Wadel and Swarnes are still incarcerated on kidnapping charges. Slates was charged with concealing a felony and hindering a prosecution by lying to investigators earlier this year, and remains free on $5,000 bail.
