$10,000 Reward Offered Over Extortion Letters

A newspaper is offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who mailed about 200 threatening extortion letters to prominent Antelope Valley citizens.

The computer-generated mass mailing was sent to doctors, lawyers, businessmen and other prominent people in Lancaster, neighboring Palmdale and unincorporated areas.

The Antelope Valley Press offered the reward in a front-page notice because the letters have been “an assault on the entire community,” City Editor Larry Grooms said. “The nature of this thing was so bizarre and the fear that it’s created was so pervasive we felt somebody ought to do something to help the authorities catch whoever was involved.” The letters, which arrived this week with a Mojave postmark, demanded hundreds of thousands of dollars and contained information particular to each recipient. The money was to be delivered to various locations.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Van Mosley said the extortionist apparently obtained various mailing lists to send the letters and personalized the death threats with information from newspapers. Some information in the letters is outdated by six months to one year.

“This revelation dispels the claim by the suspect that the victims are all being watched,” Mosely said. “Letters have been sent to addresses where the intended victims have never lived and some other addresses where the victims have not lived for six months to one year. One intended victim has been deceased for six months.”

Deputy Bob Riley said that telephone inquiries have jammed regular lines into the Antelope Valley sheriff’s station and that a special line has been established to direct calls to detectives on the case.