‘Security Consultant’ Convicted of Kidnaping Adopted Toddler

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury on Friday convicted a man of kidnaping a 13-month-old boy at gunpoint from the Pacific Palisades home of his adoptive parents in December, 1987.

In its second day of deliberations, the jury found Jonathan Cosby, 28, of North Hollywood, guilty of one count of kidnaping. Cosby is to be sentenced in April. He faces a maximum 15 years in state prison, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeannette Bernstein, who prosecuted the case.

Cosby, a self-styled “security consultant,” was hired by the child’s biological mother, Bonnie Jean Kiefer, 41, to bring back the infant she had given up in a privately arranged adoption. Kiefer was placed on five years probation after pleading no contest to a kidnaping charge.

Charges against her husband, Francis Kiefer, were dropped at the preliminary hearing, Bernstein said.

An earlier trial resulted in a deadlocked jury that voted 10 to 2 to convict Cosby.

The child was taken at gunpoint from a baby-sitter at the home of Kenneth and Barbara Smith. When the Smiths returned home about 1 1/2 hours after the abduction, they found the sitter bound and gagged.

The child was found in the Kiefers’ custody two days later in New Jersey, where they lived. Earlier, the Kiefers had lost a court battle to regain custody of their child.