OFF THE WIRE
Joe Moszczynski/The Star-Ledger
NEWTON — A judge set bail today at $750,000 for the reputed mastermind in the mistaken-identity kidnapping of a Newton businessman early this year.
William Barger, a 49-year-old Missouri resident who once claimed to be the heir apparent to the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, and four other men are being held in the Sussex County jail in connection with the kidnapping of Jeffrey Muller, 59, of Frankford from his pet supply store on Jan. 8.
“They were taking him to this man. This was going to be a one-way trip. Except for a stroke of good fortune, he (Muller) would have never seen Newton again, he would’ve never seen his family again,” First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller told Superior Court Judge N. Peter Conforti, sitting in Newton.
Roy Slates, 56, an entrepreneur from Nevada, Mo., allegedly paid Barger $10,000 to kidnap a Jeffrey Muller, a money broker from New York, in an effort to regain money that Slates lost to Muller in a golf course development deal in southern Utah.
Instead, the kidnappers – Douglas Strangeland, 47, Andrew Wadel, 22, and Lonnie Swarnes, 45, -- kidnapped and beat Jeffrey Muller, the Newton businessman. Barger recruited the three men for the job by telling them the kidnapping was part of their initiation into the Hells Angels.
Muller escaped from the trunk of his abductors’ car after it broke down near a convenience store in Missouri.
Muller declined to comment after today’s hearing.
