3 Arrested in Kidnap of La Puente Woman

Three men who allegedly kidnaped a 20-year-old La Puente woman and held her for nearly 10 hours while they sought a $50,000 ransom have been arrested, Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials said Saturday.

The woman, Zoraida Noriega, was freed unharmed early Friday evening after detectives traced the suspects to an East Valley Boulevard motel. They were captured when they tried to drive away from the motel with her at gunpoint, said Deputy Patrick Hunter.

Hunter said members of Noriega’s family said they recognized a voice in a ransom call as that of the woman’s ex-boyfriend, Gabriel Ayala, 31. The other two suspects were identified as John La Pont, 27 and Raul Serrano, 35; their hometowns were not immediately determined.

A 28-year-old woman believed to have been involved in the kidnaping was being sought Saturday night, deputies said.

Noriega had been seized at gunpoint from the front of a La Puente day-care center where she had driven at about 8 a.m. to drop off a friend’s child, Hunter said.

Elsewhere in the San Gabriel Valley, meanwhile, the search continued for suspects in two attempted kidnapings that occurred earlier in the week, sheriff’s investigators said.

In Bradbury, deputies were looking for a man in his 20s who approached two girls, ages 8 and 9, on Wednesday in the parking lot of the Royal Oaks Elementary School.

The girls ran away when the man told them that their mothers had sent him to pick them up, Deputy Roger Hom said Saturday.

The girls described the man as about 6 feet tall, with dark eyes, black hair and a thin mustache. They said he was driving an old orange-red, two-door car with a partial license plate of J98 or JJ812.

In Duarte, authorities were searching for a man in his 20s who forced a 9-year-old girl off her bicycle at the corner of Crestfield and Fernley drives Monday afternoon, Hom said.

The would-be abductor was driving a red, four-door vehicle. He was described as having a heavy build, brown hair combed straight back, brown eyes, stained teeth and a one-inch cut on his left cheek, Hom said.