Jurors Begin Deliberations in Lapin Child Kidnap Trial

A Superior Court jury Wednesday began deliberations in the Orly Lapin child kidnap trial.

Orly Lapin, a 32-year-old Israeli actress, claims that in July, 1987, she took her 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son from her ex-husband, Santa Ana surgeon Ron Lapin, because he had been molesting the little girl.

But the prosecutor claimed her molestation story was only a ploy and that she really took the children to try to force a reconciliation with the doctor.

Orly Lapin waited on a wooden bench outside the Santa Ana courtroom all afternoon Wednesday. The jurors began their deliberations shortly before noon, after the defense concluded its closing arguments. The jury was dismissed for the evening and is scheduled to return this morning.

Ron Lapin has not been able to attend the proceedings because he was a witness in the trial. But two of his employees waited in the courtroom during the afternoon.

Orly Lapin was arrested last November after police traced her through a telephone call to an apartment in Paso Robles. She said she has been permitted to see her two children only once since then and that visit was monitored. The children, who had been in their father’s custody at the time she took them, are living with their father now.